[Clinical characteristics and immunophenotype of aged patients with acute leukemia]

In order to analyze the clinical characteristics and biological features of acute leukemia in elderly, 104 acute leukemia patients in elderly were retrospectively analyzed and compared with 71 acute leukemia patients below 60 years old. The results showed that: (1) the proportion of AML in the aged group (73%) was higher than that in the young group (54.9%), and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05), but AML (M3) was absent in the aged group; (2) the median of bone marrow blast cell in the aged group was significantly lower than that in the young group (P < 0.05); (3) in AML, the frequently of CD14 expression was higher in the aged group (18.8%) than that in the young group (2.6%), while the expression frequencies of CD15 (37.5%), CD117 (62.5%), and CD38 (59.4%) were respectively lower in the aged group than that in the young group which were (69.2%) for CD15, (89.7%) for CD17, and (84.6%) for CD38 respectively, and the difference was also statistically significant (P < 0.05). (4) CD19 was most frequently expressed in ALL of the aged group and the positive rate was 100%; (5) there was no significant difference in expression of special lineage antigens and overlapping lineage antigens between the aged group and the young group (P > 0.05); (6) the expression frequency of unfavorable karyotypes in the aged group was higher than that in the young group, and the difference was statistically very significant (P < 0.01); (7) the complete remission rate (CR rate) in the aged group was 42.9%, 2-year survival rate in the aged group was 5.4%, and treatment-related mortality rate in the aged group was 26.8%, while the CR rate in the young group was 76.6%, the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). It is concluded that the expression frequency of CD14 associated with unfavorable prognosis is higher in the aged group than that in the young group, while the expression frequency of CD15 associated with favorable prognosis is lower in the aged group than that in the young group. The expression frequency of unfavorable karyotypes in the aged group is higher than that in the young group. The CR rate of acute leukemia in elderly is low, thus the patients in elderly often have unfavorable prognosis.