title: Hematogones in acute leukemia during and after therapy.
abstract: After each leukemia therapy phase, characteristics of normal regenerating B-cells may be reminiscent of and mistaken for a relapse. We compared the incidence and phenotypic characteristics of hematogone stages in a total of 669 bone marrow aspirates from 107 patients with B-ALL, 97 patients of AML, and 27 patients with T-ALL at diagnosis, during, and after therapy. The three individual physiological maturation phases of B-lymphocytes (hematogone stages 1, 2, and 3) were studied by four-color flow cytometry in the course of bone marrow regeneration in leukemia patients. Multiple stages of hematogones were observed twice as frequently in B-ALL (73.8%) and T-ALL (69.2%) samples as in AML aspirates (34.1%). Stage 3 hematogones were found usually in children and were thus frequent in B-ALL. The hematogones had an extremely high phenotypic stability unaffected by disease or therapy or by their coincidence with leukemia cells.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Ol'ga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Babusíková
authors.forename: Tatiana
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zelezníková
authors.forename: Gabriela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kirschnerová
authors.forename: Esko
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kankuri
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology*; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000502:physiology*; D001856:Bone Marrow Examination; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006801:Humans; D016130:Immunophenotyping; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007938:Leukemia / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000276:immunology* / Q000628:therapy; D008875:Middle Aged; D015452:Precursor B-Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000276:immunology; D054218:Precursor T-Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000276:immunology; D012038:Regeneration