Relationship between the type of BCR-ABL rearrangement and bone marrow histopathological features in chronic myeloid...

The aim of the present study was to characterize the type of BCR-ABL transcript and to correlate the molecular feature with bone marrow histology. For this purpose, we analysed the BCR-ABL rearrangement in 26 patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in the chronic phase by RT-PCR, and we also classified the bone marrow histology according to the predominance of granulocylic (GRAN) or granulocytic and megakaryocytic (GRAM/MEG) proliferation, after analysis of two independent observers. We did not find any significant difference in survival of patients presenting b2-a2 and b3-a2 transcripts or GRAN and GRAN/MEG bone marrow types, nor did we find any significant correlation of the type of BCR-ABL transcript with the bone marrow histological subgroups GRAN and GRAN-MEG (Fisher's test = 0.31). Thus, we conclude that the presence of exon b3 is not correlated to bone marrow histology in CML.