Aberrant myeloid antigen co-expression is correlated with high percentages of CD34-positive cells among blasts of acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients: an Indian tertiary care center perspective.
- Author:
Rahul Kumar SHARMA
1
;
Abhishek PUROHIT
;
Venkatesan SOMASUNDARAM
;
Pravas Chandra MISHRA
;
Mrinalini KOTRU
;
Ravi RANJAN
;
Sunil KUMAR
;
Sudha SAZAWAL
;
Hara Prasad PATI
;
Seema TYAGI
;
Renu SAXENA
Author Information
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords: CD34; Acute lymphoblastic leukemia; Immunophenotyping; Aberrant myeloid antigen co-expression; Flow cytometry
- MeSH: Antigens, CD34; B-Lymphocytes; Flow Cytometry; Humans; Immunophenotyping; Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma*; Precursor T-Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma; Prognosis; T-Lymphocytes; Tertiary Care Centers*
- From:Blood Research 2014;49(4):241-245
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
- Abstract: BACKGROUND: Aberrant myeloid antigen (MA) co-expression and high expression of CD34 antigen on the blasts of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients are independently reported to have a role in pathogenesis and prognosis. This study was conducted to determine whether these two parameters are related. METHODS: A total of 204 cases of ALL were included in an analysis of blast immunophenotypic data. CD34 expression was categorized as low when less than 50% of blasts were CD34-positive (CD34low) and as high when 50% or more were CD34-positive (CD34high). RESULTS: Of 204 cases of ALL, 163 and 41 were of B-cell origin (B-ALL) and T-cell origin (T-ALL), respectively. Of all cases, 132 (64.7%) showed co-expression of MA and among these, 101 (76.51%) were CD34high, while the remaining 31 (23.48%) were CD34low. Of 72 cases without MA co-expression, 25 (34.72%) were CD34high and 47 (67.25%) were CD34low. Furthermore, of 163 cases of B-ALL, 111 showed co-expression of MA and 84 of these were CD34high. Of 52 cases of B-ALL without MA expression, 22 were CD34high. Among 41 cases of T-ALL, 21 co-expressed MA, 17 of which were CD34high. Moreover, all 20 cases of T-ALL without co-expression of MA were CD34low. These differences were statistically significant. CONCLUSION: We observed a strong correlation between aberrant MA expression and CD34high expression on the blasts of ALL. We hypothesize that these different patient subsets may represent unique prognostic characteristics.
