Clinical relevance of apo-1 / fas and Bcl-2 expression in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia

ABSTRACT

This study tried to speculate the role of Apo-I antigen and BCL-2 oncoprotein in newly diagnosed children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia [ALL] and to find out if they have any possible role as predictors of the outcome and response to therapy. Before induction therapy Fas antigen expression had a significantly low mean value in the patients with failed induction compared with patients with complete remission. Patients with failed induction showed a significantly higher pre-induction value of patients who showed complete remission. No significant correlation was found between the percentage of Fas expression among patients with ALL was variable. In spite of having high values of Bcl-2, yet, neither Fas antigen expression nor the level of BCL-2 oncoprotein could be considered as a sensitive predictor of the outcome and response to therapy