Karyotope and survival in human acute leukemia

Of 111 patients presenting with acute forms of leukemia, 44% had a chromosomally abnormal cell line in the bone marrow at diagnosis. In each of the acute leukemia forms (myeloid, lymphatic, stem-cell), patients with karyotypic abnormalities showed mean and median survival times like those with normal chromosomes. Both groups showed a wide range of survival times. The mean and median survival times of patients with mixed populations of chromosomally normal and abnormal cells did not differ from those of patients with exclusively abnormal cells in the bone marrow. The karyotypic abnormalities associated with acute leukemia, as well as having no etiologic significance, probably do not determine the subsequent course of the leukemia.