The value of multiparameter flow cytometry of cerebrospinal fluid involved by leukemia/lymphoma cells
Abstract:
The usefulness of multiparameter flow cytometric (FC) analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was evaluated in leukemia/lymphoma patients having central nervous system (CNS) involvement of the disease. In 12 specimens of 8 patients with different types of leukemia/lymphoma (one case of T-ALL, 3 cases of early B-cell ALL, one case of AML, and 3 proven or suspicious NHL cases) the presence of pathological clone in CSF has been confirmed or excluded. The phenotypic patterns of CSF cells were defined according to those of bone marrow (BM)/peripheral blood (PB) at diagnosis or during follow-up of the same patients. Furthermore, in one case of suspicious CNS infiltration of NHL, the pathological clone was characterized as a highly suspicious of solid tumor and was proved to be a lung cancer metastasis. The definition was made on the basis of CD45 (common leukocyte antigen) and other studied CD markers negativity. The exact comparison of immunophenotypic profiles of specimens from different sites (CSF, BM, PB) of the same patient has been performed and no phenotypic changes were found. In some CSF specimens, where no cells of suspicious pathological clone were detected, in 4-color analysis only normal lymphocyte population was found even in small cell samples (even if the cellularity was