[Immunophenotypes in 207 pediatric patients with ALL and theirs correlation with cytogenetics and clinical features]

The objective of this study was to investigate the immunophenotypic subtype profiles of 207 pediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and its correlation with cytogenetics and clinical features. 207 children with ALL were immunophenotyped by four color flow cytometry using a panel of monoclonal antibodies. 207 patients were enrolled in this study, out of which 146 cases were subjected to karyotype analysis by R-banding technology. The results showed that 11.6% out of 207 children with ALL were identified as T-ALL, 88.4% as B-ALL. Myeloid antigen (MyAg) expression was documented in 42.5% out of 207 cases analyzed and CD13 was the most commonly expressed MyAg (31.4%). No difference was observed in the expression of MyAg between the groups of patients with T-ALL (41.7%) and B-ALL (42.6%). Abnormal karyotypes were detected in 84 out of 146 (57.5%) children. The clinical and biological characteristics of ALL patients between MyAg(+) and MyAg(-) groups showed that higher percentage of patients with high WBC count (> 50 × 10(9)/L) and higher CD34 positivity were found to be correlated with MyAg(+) ALL. It is concluded that immunophenotype analysis is useful for ALL diagnosis and classification, and the immunophenotypes are in relevance to the abnormal cytogenetic changes as well as clinical features in childhood ALL.