The computer-assisted morphological classification of acute leukemia. I. Preliminary results

The morphology of leukemic lymphoblasts, as seen in the initial routine bone marrow aspirate, of 40 children with ALL has been evaluated using a computer-assisted automated microscope. A statistic, derived from a combination of the number of macrolymphoblasts and the percentage of cells with no cytoplasm was found to predict response to standard therapy and to identify patients with a high probability of long-term remission as well as a group with a relatively poor response to therapy.