Expression of fas antigen in acute myeloid leukemia and its clinical imorttance

ABSTRACT

Flow cytometric immunofluorescent analysis was used to assess Fas antigen [CD95] expression in blasts obtained from bone marrow of 24 patients with acute myeloid leukemia. The percentage of positive cells in each sample was highly variable. Fas antigen expression did nor correlate with age Hb% concentration, while blood cell count, platelet count, blast% in peripheral blood, blast% in bone marrow, CD34 expression or BC12 protein. Low expression of Fas was associated with a low complete remission rate after induction chemotherapy [69.2% in cases with <20% positive cells versus 90.9% in cases with >/20% positive cells, P <0.01]. The main cause for not achieving remission was resistant diseases. The result of this study suggested that the quantitation of Fas expression can be predictive of treatment outcome in acute myeloid leukemia