CLINICAL IMPLICATION OF DNA
CONTENT ASSAY IN CHILDHOOD ACUTE LEUKEMIA
Dai BT, Li X, Xu YH, Liou YX
Department of Hematology,
Children’s Hospital, Chongqing, China
Objective: To investigate the distribution of marrow cell
circle, DNA-aneuploid and their relationship with the types of leukemia and
therapeutic effects in childhood acute leukemia (AL).
Methods: mononuclear cellular DNA contents in bone
marrow were assessed by flow cytometry (FCM) in 65 patients with childhood
AL.
Results: The proportion of patients with DNA-aneuploid
was different in the various types of AL: DNA-aneuploid in the patients with B-ALL was the
highest, in the patients with AML was the second and in the patients with
T-ALL was the lowest
(P<0.05). There was no significant difference of the distribution
of DNA-aneuploid cell circle between the patients with ALL and the patients
with AML (P>0.05). Sixty-five patients with AL had a higher G0/G1-phase
compartment than normal controls. However, the cell circle distribution of
the DNA-aneuploid and DNA-diploid without DNA-aneuploid cell in the
patients with AL had no significant differences compared with those in the
normal controls (P>0.05). The patients with DNA –diploid cell with
DNA-aneuploid had a higher G0/G1-phase compartment
than normal controls. It was showed that the patients with high S-phase
were more sensitive to chemotherapy than the patients with low S-phase.
Conclusions: The analysis of marrow mononuclear cellular
DNA content and cell circle distribution by FCM in patients with AL can be
helpful in distinguishing the high risk ALL from the standard risk ALL and
provide the crucial reference data for the treatment.