Immunophenotyping assessment of Acute Lymphoid Leukemia in adults and its relation to induction therapy

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is associated with a high rate of mortality in adults and the cure rate of the affected patients is nearly 25-40%. In order to achieve a good treatment, diagnosis of ALL subtypes and their consequent differentiation from other types of leukemia are required. The main aim of this study was to classify ALL subtypes by Flowcytometry. One hundred and thirty four patients with ALL were recruited from Shahid Ghazi Hospital (1998 to 2006). In these studies, 86 out of 134 patients were examined by Flowcytometry. About 15.5% of the patients were considered to have pro B-cell ALL, 52% pre B-cell and mature B-cell ALL, and 32% mature T-cell ALL; 64% of the patients with B-cell subtype achieved complete remission after induction therapy, while this percentage for T-cell ALL was 44%. Based on the examined markers, the differentiation of Pre T-cell ALL from mature T-cell ALL was not possible. The response to therapy was higher in the T-cell ALL group compared to B-cell. In this study, the frequency of T-cell ALL was higher than the reference (32%). However, it must be mentioned that the high grade T-cell Lymphoma was differentiated from ALL. The duration of remission and survival in B-cell ALL was longer than T-cell ALL but this difference was not statistically significant.