[Cytometric study of blast cells in acute leukemias and their prognostic value]

Cytometric assessment of the leukemic blasts was performed in the course of diagnosing acute leukemia. The results of the cytometric study were used as prognostic parameters. We measured the surface of the nucleus and of the cytoplasm, and calculated the nucleus-cytoplasm ratio. The investigation was carried out on peripheral blood and bone marrow smears in 50 patients with acute leukemia, classified according to the FAB classification. The results showed that the mean surface of the nucleus in all groups was significantly bigger in bone marrow cells than in the peripheral blood. In non-lymphoblastic leukemia no significant differences of the mean leukemic blast nucleus surface were found among the subgroups either in the bone marrow or in the peripheral blood. Concerning the mean surface of the blast cytoplasm in the peripheral blood it has been established that in the subgroup M-2 it is significantly the smallest in nonlymphoblastic leukemia subgroups, while in the bone marrow it is significantly bigger in M-2 and M-4 subgroups than in the peripheral blood. In lymphoblastic leukemia the mean surfaces of the cytoplasm in the peripheral blood were not significantly different from those in the bone marrow, while concerning the mean surface of the nucleus the difference was registered in favor of the bone marrow. The nucleus-cytoplasm ratio was rather high in the blasts of the peripheral blood and the bone marrow.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)