The Papanicolaou stained smears show a great number of blast cells with clefts and grooves, and a pale regular chromatin pattern. Unfortunately the Leishman stained smears were of very bad quality due to inadvertent previous ethyl alcohol fixation, and the M3 hypogranular fenotype seen in the blood smears could not be documented in the pleural material. Pleural effusions due to leukemic infiltration are very rare, and this is one of such cases. The patient had multiple organ failure, and died a few days after. No autopsy was done.