Background Despite the advances in the cure rate for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a considerable number of patients die from the disease due to the occurrence of multidrug resistance (MDR). Overexpression of the transporter proteins, such as P‐glycoprotein (Pgp) and multidrug resistance‐associated protein (MRP), confers resistance to the treatment of these leukemias. Methods To analyze the expression of the Pgp and MRP1 in patients with AML and determine their correlation between expression and demographic, clinical, and laboratorial variables, bone marrow and peripheral blood samples from 346 patients with a diagnosis of AML were assessed for the expression of Pgp and MRP1 by flow cytometry. Results The expression of Pgp and MRP1 was found in 111 (32.1%) and 133 (38.4%) patients, respectively, with greater prevalence in older patients and lower in children, while also observing a high incidence in patients with refractory, recurrence, and secondary disease in comparison with the cases of de novo AML. Regarding the laboratory findings, we observed an association between the expression of Pgp and MRP1 and CD34, CD7, and also M7, M5a, and M2‐AML of French‐American‐British classification. Conclusions The results showed that the detection of MDR phenotype by flow cytometry can be a molecular marker for prognosis of patients with AML.

Due to the high prevalence of hemochromatosis, its genetic diagnosis has become a challenge, especially in the high-risk group.

BackgroundCytogenetic studies in Brazilian population about childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood malignancy, are scarce. Moreover, Brazilian race is very heterogeneous and is made by the confluence of people of several different origins, from the original Native Brazilians, with the influx of Portuguese colonizers, Black African slaves, and recent European, Arab and Japanese immigration. The purpose of this prospective, multicentric study was to assess the sociodemographic, clinic and cytogenetic characteristics of the children treated for ALL in the Northeast region of Brazil.ResultsThis study includes thirty patients between 4 months and 17 years old treated for ALL from January 1st, 2009 to November 30th, 2010. Cytogenetic analysis showed that in nineteen out of thirty patients (64%) presented some chromosome abnormalities, in which 53% corresponds to numerical abnormalities, 21% structural and numerical abnormalities, and 26% only structural changes. Moreover, seven patients presented complexes karyotype not yet described in the literature. Taken together these results show the importance of the cytogenetic analysis in ALL pediatric patients and illustrates that the studied population presented unexpected complexes karyotypes which were correlated to poor outcome.ConclusionThe results demonstrate the importance of banding cytogenetics for ALL diagnosis despite the use of most modern techniques such as FISH and aCGH, and provide reliable insight into the ALL in Brazil.

The authors conducted a flow cytometry immunophenotyping study in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) from Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The patients (n = 126) were newly diagnosed using a panel of monoclonal antibodies: CD1a, CD2, CD3, CD4, CD7, CD8, CD10, CD13, CD33, CD14, CD19, CD22, CD79a, CD117, CD34, anti-IgM, anti-TdT, anti-HLA-Dr, and anti-human kappa and lambda light chains. Additional data, such as patients' age and gender, clinical and laboratory findings such as presence of tumor masses, lymphadenopathy, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, leukemic infiltration in the central nervous system (CNS) were also investigated. Results showed that 56.7% of the cases were B-lineage ALL and 55% were T-cell ALL. Also, we found that males were more affected by the disease, regardless of immunological classification. The correlation between age and immunological subtypes showed that the B-lineage ALL occurred more frequently in patients aged under 15 while the T-cell ALL subtype was more frequent in adults. Immunophenotypic profiles and morphological subtypes showed a direct correlation between L3 subtype and B-lineage ALL, while L1 and L2 subtypes correlated more often with B-cell lineage and T-cell ALL, respectively. Correlation analysis between immunophenotypic and clinical profiles showed that T-cell ALL was more associated with a higher incidence of lymphadenopathy, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly and CNS leukemic infiltration, also showing a greater blast cell count in peripheral blood than the other subgroups. The presented data suggest that immunophenotyping is an important method in the diagnosis, monitoring and prognostic assessment in determining the pathological mechanisms of evolution of ALL.

Background: The detection of Intracellular (IC) antigens by flow cytometry (FC) such as myeloperoxidase (MPO), cCD13, cCD79a, cCD22, cCD3 and Terminal deoxynucleotidyl Transferase (TdT) has become the useful tool in the differential diagnosis between acute myeloid leukemias (AML) and acute lymphoid leukemias (ALL). Through detection of myeloid antigens (MPO and cCD13), B cells precursors (cCD79a and cCD22) and precocity T-cells (cCD3) it has been possible to confirm the diagnosis of these acute leukemias. The detection of intracellular cell markers by FC usually requires previous permeabilization of fresh cell suspensions. TdT, also known as DNA nucleotidylexotransferase (DNTT) or terminal transferase, is a specialized DNA polymerase expressed in immature, pre-B, pre-T lymphoid cells, and acute lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma cells. TdT adds N-nucleotides to the V, D, and J exons of the TCR and BCR genes during antibody gene recombination, enabling the phenomenon of junctional diversity. In humans, terminal transferase is encoded by the DNTT gene. This antigen is expressed mostly in the nucleus cells from primary lymphoid organs, like the thymus and bone marrow. The TdT detection has also been shown to be useful in confirming the acute forms of B and T-lineage lymphoproliferative diseases by FC. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the importance of this cell markers' detection by FC in the differential diagnostic of acute leukemias. Methods: Bone marrow and/or peripheral blood leukemic cells from 50 cases of acute leukemia: 16 ALL and 36 AML. The cells were fixed and permeabilized in briefly exposed to Becton & Dickinson Lyse Solution at concentration of 10%, and subsequently labeled with monoclonal antibodies anti-MPO, TdT, CD3, CD13, CD22 and CD79a. Results: The MPO expression was observed in 35/36(97,22%) and cCD13 in all cases of AML and in none ALL patients. Three cases of MPO-positive ALL (FAB-L2) could be reclassified as M0-AML. These cases were CD34+;HLADR+;CD33-;CD13-;CD7+ and cCD13+. The intensity of TdT expression was observed in 15/16 (93.8%) of ALL and 5/36 (13.9%) of AML. The cCD22 and cCD79a were positive in 15/16 (93.8%) and all of pre-B ALL respectively and cCD3 was expressed in one case of Pre-T ALL that initial phenotype was CD34+/HLADR+/TdT+/CD7+ and sCD3-). Conclusions: These results indicate that monoclonal antibodies anti-MPO, cCD13, cCD79a, cCD22, cCD3 and TdT were excellent cell markers for the diagnosis and classification of acute leukemias and can be reliably detected by FC. This rapid and specific technique should be a valuable addition to routine immunophenotyping of acute leukemia. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.