Application of May-Grunwald-Giemsa staining followed by fluorescence in situ hybridization techniques in the diagnosis of acute leukemia / 中华检验医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the clinical application of May-Grunwald-Giemsa staining followed by fluorescence in situ hybridization (MGG-FISH) technique in the differentiation diagnosis of Ph-chromosome positive acute lymphoid leukemia (Ph + ALL) from chronic myeloid leukemia in lymphoid blast crisis(CML-LBC). Methods The bone marrow smears of 4 patients with Ph+ ALL, 4 patients with CML-LBC, 1 patient with CML in myelocytic blast crisis complicated with lymphoma and 1 patient with CML in mixed blast crisis were assayed with the MGG-FISH technique in which the spectrum green labeled BCR and spectrum orange labeled ABL dual color dual fusion probes were used. Based on the morphological classification, the percentages of BCR-ABL positive cells were subsequently determined respectively in the erythroid, myeloid and lymphoid hneages for the 10 specimens. Results According to the MGG-FISH analysis, the erythroid lineage was not involved in the 4 Ph+ ALL specimens without BCR/ABL positive cells. While the BCR/ABL positive percentage of myeloid cells was 11% (1/9), 8% (1/12), 0% (0/8) and 10% (1/10) respectively and that of lymphoid cells was 97% (76/78), 98% (87/89), 98% (97/99) and 97% (75/77) respectively. On the other hand, the BCR/ABL positive percentage was 100% (8/8), 91% (10/11), 82% (9/11), 88% (7/8) in the erythroid lineage, 89% (8/9), 96% (94/98), 100% (47/47), 98% (40/41)in the myeloid lineage and 96% (78/81), 93% (52/56), 96% (68/71), 95% (58/61) in the lymphoid lineage respectively for the 4 CML-LBC specimens. The BCR/ABL positive percentages of the other 2 specimens were all above 80% and through MGG-FISH analysis we also identified the source of the malignant clones and ascertained the diagnosis of the 2 patients. Conclusions The MGG-FISH technique has proved useful in providing rapid and precise differentiation between Ph + ALL and CML-LBC. The source of the malignant clones can also be analyzed by this technique.