Characterization of blasts in clinical samples containing few blasts

Area of Science:

• Hematology
• Cell Biology
• Clinical Diagnostics

Background:

• Accurate characterization of blasts is crucial for therapy decisions, especially when present at low percentages in clinical samples.
• Conventional cell characterization methods lack reliability for scant target cells.
• Existing blast enrichment methods, like flow cytometry (FCM) cell sorting, cannot enrich blasts with unknown immunophenotypes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the clinical utility of Blastretriever, a novel density centrifugation reagent for blast enrichment.
• To assess Blastretriever's effectiveness in enriching rare blasts for subsequent characterization.

Main Methods:

• Blastretriever reagent was used for density centrifugation of bone marrow and peripheral blood samples.
• Enriched cells were analyzed using flow cytometry (FCM).
• The reagent's performance was compared to conventional mononuclear cell preparation reagents.

Main Results:

• Blastretriever successfully enriched myeloblasts and B-cell precursors from normal bone marrow.
• Significant enrichment of leukemic myeloblasts, lymphoblasts, and blastoid lymphoma cells was observed in 36 clinical samples.
• All 11 patient samples with low blast percentages (as low as 0.2%) achieved successful blast enrichment.
• Reliable blast characterization was enabled by FCM, fluorescence in situ hybridization, and G-banding.

Conclusions:

• Blastretriever is a valuable tool for enriching rare blasts from clinical samples.
• This enrichment facilitates reliable blast characterization, even with very low blast percentages.
• The characterized blast information is critical for guiding appropriate patient therapy.