Significance of BCR-ABL transcripts in bone marrow aspirates of Philadelphia-negative essential thrombocythemia patients.
Philadelphia-negative (Ph-neg) essential thrombocythemia (ET), polycythemia vera (PV) and idiopathic myelofibrosis (IMF) form a syndrome of related chronic myeloproliferative disorders (MPD) characterized by expansion of one or more of the hematopoietic progenitors. Based on our previous finding of BCR-ABL transcripts in bone marrow aspirates of 12/25 Ph-neg ET patients, we have expanded our study up to 40 patients. Here we describe the rational for performing this study and report 19 of 40 patients who have BCR-ABL transcripts in their BM, 11 of them carry b3a2 and 8 carry b2a2. The two groups, BCR-ABL positive and negative, were completely identical with regard to clinical characteristics and laboratory data. We also report preliminary results of our attempt to examine concordance or discordance of BCR-ABL expression in the peripheral blood and bone marrow of Ph-neg ET patients.
Aviram
A
A
Division of Hematology, Rabin Medical Center, Beilinson Campus, Petach-Tikva, Israel.
Blickstein
D
D
Stark
P
P
Luboshitz
J
J
Bairey
O
O
Prokocimer
M
M
Shaklai
M
M
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000737:chemistry*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D016313:Genes, abl / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010677:Philadelphia Chromosome; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013920:Thrombocythemia, Essential / Q000235:genetics*