Epidemiological studies were conducted in pesticide exposed agricultural workers along with an equal number of age- and sex-matched controls. All the 200 exposed volunteers were suffering from fever, nausea, headache and other abnormal symptoms and visited the hospital for general health check-up. These cases
were taken up for more detailed studies. Five (2.5%) showed decrease in RBC, haemoglobin, and increase in WBC with a large number of immature cells. These volunteers were further diagnosed as Philadelphianegative Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) cases based on clinical and pathological examinations.