No abstract

Two patients with acute nonlymphocytic leukemia (ANLL) and t(16;21)(p11;q22) were studied. The patients exhibited such clinical and hematological pictures, characterized by M2 and M4 with eosinophilia (FAB classification), as relatively matured leukemic cells, low neutrophil alkaline phosphatase activity, abnormal eosinophils and a high count of monocytic cells in the bone marrow. The prognosis was poor in both patients. From these data, the chromosomal abnormality of t(16;21)(p11;q22) seems to be specifically associated with a unique subtype of ANLL.

Doublon is one of the typical patterns found in crystal growth. It is a bound state of two fingerlike patterns. In this paper, we obtain a phase diagram for doublons with numerical simulations of the phase-field model. Numerical simulations are performed in a channel. Two small seeds of crystal with different sizes are set on the left side of the channel as an initial condition, in order to find whether the two fingers grow into a doublon or one finger overcomes the other owing to mutual competition. It is confirmed that a stable doublon is formed when the undercooling is large and the anisotropy is weak. Furthermore, we find a doublon with oscillating groove in a certain parameter range. We investigate more carefully the transition between the doublon and the dendrite by changing the anisotropy parameters stepwise, and show that the difference of the tip velocities of the doublon and the dendrite increases continuously from zero at a critical value of anisotropy.

In a comparison of 47 patients with Philadelphia-chromosome (Ph)-positive chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in the Nagasaki University School of Medicine and 64 patients with the same disease in the Roswell Park Memorial Institute, the correlation between the modal number of chromosomes and the therapeutic response and/or survival after the onset of the blastic phase (BP) was evaluated. The patients were divided into four groups on the basis of the modal number of chromosomes of the cells in the bone marrow: those with hypodiploidy (group 1), those with pseudodiploidy carrying a Ph chromosome (group 2), those with 47 chromosomes (group 3), and those with 48 or more chromosomes (group 4). The results revealed similar trends in the two institutes. Namely, the therapeutic response and the survival after the onset of the BP in groups 1 and 4 were more unfavorable and shorter than those in groups 2 and 3, although the former (group 2) had a better prognosis than the latter (group 3). Thus, the statistical analysis revealed that the numerical chromosome findings at the BP are useful parameters for assessing the therapeutic response and survival after the onset of the BP of CML.

We study dendritic growth numerically with a phase field model. Tip oscillation and regular side-branching are observed in a parameter region where the anisotropies of the surface tension and the kinetic effect compete. The transition from a needle pattern to a dendritic pattern is conjectured to be a supercritical Hopf bifurcation.