Leukemic cells and aberrant phenotypes in acute leukemia patients: a flow cytometry analysis
Abstract:
The aim of this study was to evaluate the heterogeneity of immunophenotype features in acute leukemia patients and to detect the presence of leukemia-associated immunophenotypes. We prospectively investigated the phenotype of blast cells from 44 adult acute leukemia patients using a large panel of monoclonal antibodies by multiparametric flow cytometry. Thirty-three patients were classified as AML according to the FAB classification. Eleven patients were diagnosed as ALL (10 cases B-ALL, 1 case T-ALL) according to both FAB and immunnophenotyping. We found leukemia-associated phenotypes in 28 of 33 AML patients (84.8%) and in 8 of 11 ALL patients (72.7%). In 61.1% of patients more than one aberrant phenotype was observed. Linear infidelity was the most frequent aberrancy in both AML (64.3%) and ALL (37.5%) subgroups. The present study shows that MFC is a helpful method for sufficient identification of leukemic cells and for determina- tion of blast cells immunophenotype heterogeneity. The double stain flow cytometry in our study revealed aberrant phenotypes in up to 81.8% patients.