ABSTRACT
Introduction: The analysis of immunophenotype of the leukaemic cells has been of great importance for the diagnosis, classification and prognosis of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).
Materials and Methods: One hundred and thirteen Chinese patients with ALL were immunophenotyped by flow cytometry and 74 cases were also subjected to karyotype analysis by G-banding technology. Results: Of the 113 Chinese ALL patients, 14.2% were identified as T-ALL and 85.8% as B-ALL. Myeloid antigen (MyAg) expression was documented in 34.9% of the cases analysed and CD13 was most commonly expressed MyAg in ALL patients (23.6%). MyAg positivity was higher in adult with ALL (47.6%) than in children with ALL (26.6%). Abnormal karyotypes were detected in 39 out of 74 (52.7%) cases. The clinical and biological characteristics of ALL patients between MyAg+ and MyAg– groups showed that increased white blood count (WBC) (>50 × 109 /L), higher CD34 positivity and higher percentage of adult patients were found to be correlated with MyAg+ ALL. Conclusions: Our results indicate that the immunophenotype did have relevance to the abnormal cytogenetic changes and clinical features in ALL. Flow cytometry immunophenotype has become the most important method for diagnosis and typing of ALL..Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is a heterogeneous disease with abnormal proliferation and accumulation of immature lymphoblasts within the bone marrow (BM), peripheral blood and lymphoid tissues, and is composed of different genetic, biological, and clinically relevant subtypes. Morphological and cytochemical methods were the main tools for diagnosis and classification of acute leukaemia before identification of monoclonal antibodies.
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