Pretreatment cytokinetic studies in 94 children with acute leukemia.
Relationship to other variables at diagnosis and to outcome of standard
treatment
SB Murphy, RJ Aur, JV Simone, S George and AM Mauer
The relationship of the pretreatment bone marrow mitotic index (MI) and in
vitro 3H-thymidine labeling index (LI) to other variables present at
diagnosis and to the outcome of standard therapy was examined in a series
of 94 children with acute leukemia (71 ALL, 23 AML). The range of observed
values at diagnosis was extremely broad, from less than 1% labeled cells to
more than 25%. The median LI% for all patients studied was 5.2%; the median
MI% was 0.3%. The values for AML and ALL did not differ significantly
despite older age, higher initial white blood cell (WBC) counts, and poorer
response to therapy of AML patients. The initial MI and LI were positively
correlated with each other, but unrelated to age or initial WBC count in
either ALL or AML. However, the LI and MI were significantly higher (p less
than 0.01) in the group of 10 children of 54 studied with ALL whose blasts
formed spontaneous rosettes with sheep red blood cells at 37 degrees C. The
initial LI and MI were not shown to be related to the likelihood of
attaining a complete response or to the length of remission in either ALL
or AML. There was thus no evidence that either the initial MI or LI% of
marrow blasts was of any prognostic significance in children with acute
leukemia.
Volume 49,
Issue 5,
pp. 683-691,
05/01/1977
Copyright © 1977 by The American Society of Hematology
