The Open Leukemia Journal
2010, 3 : 47-54Published online 2010 July 16. DOI: 10.2174/1876816401003010047
Publisher ID: TOLEUKEMIAJ-3-47
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Flow Cytometry Evaluation of Minimal Residual Disease in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia Type B
2 EFS Rhone-Alpes, Department of Cellular Immunology, Grenoble, France
3 Department of Clinical haematology, Hospital Farhat Hached, Sousse, Tunisia
4 Laboratory of Toxicology, Hospital Farhat Hached, Sousse, Tunisia
* Address correspondence to this author at the Laboratory of haematology. Hospital Farhat Hached, 4000 Sousse, Tunisia; Tel: 00 216 73 22 33 11; Fax: 00 216 73 22 67 02; E-mails: , jmilinejia@yahoo.fr
ABSTRACT
Immunophenotyping has become essential to the diagnosis and the treatment management of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). We prospectively studied minimal residual disease (MDR) in patients with B lineage ALL who achieved mCR remission. The initial series of patients consisted on 90 cases with B ALL. Sixty-Six patients had bone marrow samples adequate for MDR studies collected on day 35 of remission induction chemotherapy. Strategy of monitoring MRD is based on flow cytometry using quadruple staining according the leukaemia associated immunophenotype found at diagnosis. Data analysis was done using an EPI XL cytometer (Coulter), acquiring 500 000 events. Of the 66 patients 40 (60, 6%) had MRD ≥0, 01%. B lymphoblasts of ALL may morphologically resemble to hematogones (B benign lymphocyte precursors) and their immunophentypes have similarities. Different combinations of antibodies are tested to determine which combinations are more suitable to detect B residual leukaemics cells. The results of this present study indicate that: CD10/CD38/CD19/CD45 and CD10/CD34CD19/CD45 are the more specifics and should be used to distinguish B lymphoblasts of lymphoblastic acute leukaemia from normal hematogones