Bone marrow mononuclear cell thymidine uptake in chronic B-lymphocytic leukaemia. Relation to prognosis

The uptake of tritium-labelled thymidine in bone marrow mononuclear cells from 22 untreated patients with Rai stage 0-II chronic B-lymphocytic leukaemia was analysed in 4-d in vitro cultures. The thymidine uptakes showed a great interindividual variability; the counts per min ranged from 1100 to 80 000 (mean 26 360 +/- 21 800 cpm). Bone marrow cells from patients who needed treatment within 1 yr from diagnosis had a lower thymidine uptake than those from patients who were untreated for more than 2 yr (7 820 +/- 7 420 and 34 300 +/- 23 200 cpm, respectively, p less than 0.001). Patients with low uptake cells had poorer prognosis than those with high uptake cells, both regarding survival (5-yr probability: 0.6 and 1.0, respectively; p less than 0.03) and therapy-free survival (5-yr probability: 0.36 and 1.0, respectively; p less than 0.02).