title: Cytogenetic analysis of 298 newly diagnosed cases of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in Tunisia.
abstract: Genetic changes associated with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) provide diagnostic and prognostic information with a direct impact on patient management. We report the cytogenetic analysis of 298 Tunisian patients with ALL, including 183 children and 115 adults. Chromosome abnormalities have been detected in 68.2% of our patients associating clonal numerical and/or structural rearrangements. Some chromosomal abnormalities especially hyperdiploidy, 19p13 abnormalities, 8q24 translocations, 12p, 6q deletions and TCR rearrangements occur at a lower incidence compared to that reported in other populations. ALL cases (5.7%) had miscellaneous clonal abnormalities. We also found in our Tunisian series a higher incidence for T-lineage ALL more than usually described. Among structural chromosomal abnormalities, t(9;22)(q34;q11) resulting in the BCR/ABL fusion and the t(12;21)(p13;q22) resulting in the TEL/AML1 fusion were studied by FISH providing additional diagnostic and prognostic information. We conclude that although the incidence of our cytogenetic results are slightly different, their clinical significance is similar to that described in the literature.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Cytogénétique et de Biologie de la Reproduction, CHU Farhat Hached, Sousse, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Abir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gmidène
authors.forename: Hlima
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sennana
authors.forename: Hatem
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Elghezal
authors.forename: Sihem
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ziraoui
authors.forename: Yosra Ben
authors.initials: YB
authors.lastname: Youssef
authors.forename: Moez
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Elloumi
authors.forename: Lamia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Issaoui
authors.forename: Imed
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Harrabi
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Raynaud
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saad
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002875:Chromosomes / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D003582:Cytogenetics / Q000379:methods*; D004171:Diploidy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016130:Immunophenotyping; D017404:In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence; D007621:Karyotyping; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology*; D014178:Translocation, Genetic; D014416:Tunisia