Involvement of natural killer cells in chronic myeloid leukemia

We assessed the involvement of natural killer (NK) cells in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). We adopted the MAC (morphology antibody chromosomes) method, which allows simultaneous assessment of cell morphology, immunophenotype, and chromosome aberrations in the same mitotic or interphase cells. We examined three patients with CML in chronic phase and two patients with the disease in blast crisis. Patients in the chronic phase of the disease showed no involvement of NK cells, but involvement was detected in one of the patients in blast crisis. In this patient, a proportion of the B cells and lymphoid stem cells was also neoplastic, whereas mature postthymic T cells were normal.