[Study of calcitonin gene methylation in chronic myeloid leukemia by using Hpa II-PCR]

To investigate the role of calcitonin(CT) gene hypermethylation in the transformation from the initial chronic phase to blast crisis of chronic myeloid leukemia, 31 CML patients were studied by using Hpa II-PCR. The results showed that the 10.52%(2/19) chronic phase, 71.4%(5/7) accelerated phase and 80.0%(4/5) blast crisis of patients had CT gene hypermethylation and that the increased methylation of the CT gene were related with the disease progression. The reports indicated that the hypermethylation of CT gene might be a useful marker for predicting the evolution of CML and selecting chronic phase patients for BMT.