[The flow cytometry of lymphocyte deoxyribonucleic acid in chronic lympholeukemia]

A study of 140 patients with B-cell chronic lympoheucosis using flow cytometry of DNA of lymphocytes evidences an interrelation between the severity of the clinical course of the disease and state of lymphocyte DNA. The authors propose to distinguish 2 variants of chronic lympholeucosis: accumulative and proliferative. In the former DNA ploidy and kinetics of tumour lymphocytes did not differ from that in the healthy; in the latter--progression of the disease depended on S-phase lymphocyte contact. Progression of the severity of chronic lympholeucosis is accompanied by marked increase of polyploid cell in the S-phase that may be a criterion for early diagnosis of malignant transformation of chronic lympholeucosis.