title: Blast count and cytogenetics correlate and are useful parameters for the evaluation of different phases in chronic myeloid leukemia.
abstract: Staging of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) phases is based on cytomorphological criteria that vary considerably between different staging systems. Thus, staging of CML is heterogeneous and causes problems with respect to the comparison of therapeutical strategies and clinical outcome. We evaluated 59 patients with CML in different stages of the disease. In order to define which cytomorphological parameters correlate with cytogenetics we investigated cytomorphology and cytogenetics in parallel in all cases. As a result, bone marrow blast count demonstrated a highly significant correlation with the respective cytogenetic results of the patients and was clearly linked to the frequency and complexity of clonal evolution. We therefore propose to focus staging systems of CML on the correlation of the percentage of bone marrow blasts and the cytogenetic results.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Leukemia Diagnostics, Department for Internal Medicine III, Klinikum Grossharden, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Marchioninistr, Munich, Germany. ulrike.bacher@med.uni-muenchen.de
authors.forename: Ulrike
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Bacher
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kern
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schnittger
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hiddemann
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schoch
authors.forename: Torsten
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Haferlach
mesh_terms: D001752:Blast Crisis / Q000097:blood / Q000473:pathology*; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D020732:Cytogenetic Analysis; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007621:Karyotyping; D015464:Leukemia, Myelogenous, Chronic, BCR-ABL Positive / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics*; D007958:Leukocyte Count / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011446:Prospective Studies