F-blast is a useful marker for differentiating hypocellular refractory anemia from aplastic anemia.
Making a morphologic distinction between hypocellular refractory anemia (hypo RA) and aplastic anemia (AA) is difficult. To investigate the significance of hemoglobin F-containing erythroblasts (F-blasts) and p53 expression in making the distinction between hypo RA and acquired AA, we immunohistochemically assessed F-blasts and p53 in bone marrow specimens from 16 patients with hypo RA, 31 patients with acquired AA, and 15 hematologically normal individuals. F-blast production was elevated in 87.5% (14/16) of patients with hypo RA, but in only 3.2% (1/31) of patients with AA (P < .01). p53 was overexpressed in 75.0% (12/16) of hypo RA patients and in 6.4% (2/31) of AA patients (P < .01). The mean contents of F-blasts and p53-positive cells in patients with hypo RA were 6.31% +/- 3.27% and 7.54% +/- 4.36%, respectively, of all bone marrow cells, which were significantly higher than for patients with AA (0.35% +/- 0.46% and 0.58% +/- 1.29%, P < .01). In conclusion, a high prevalence of elevated F-blast production is noted in hypo RA, suggesting that the assessment of F-blasts in bone marrow can be used as an additional tool for differentiating hypo RA from acquired AA.
Choi
Jong Weon
JW
Department of Pathology, Nagoya University Hospital, Japan.
Fujino
Masahiko
M
Ito
Masafumi
M
D000368:Aged; D000741:Anemia, Aplastic / Q000473:pathology*; D000753:Anemia, Refractory / Q000473:pathology*; D001752:Blast Crisis / Q000473:pathology; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells / Q000473:pathology*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000032:analysis
D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53