ABSTRACT
A comparison of flow cytometry (FC) and bone marrow biopsy (BMB) to evaluate bone marrow infiltration was made in 114 patients suffering from B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHLs; 51 at diagnosis, 63 during post-therapy follow-up). The following parameters were indicative of bone marrow infiltration: altered surface k/l ratio; specific immunophenotypic pattern in particular NHLs (CLL, mantle cell lymphoma, hairy cell leukemia). FC and BMB agreed in 89.5% of cases (i.e. both showed 48 positive and 54 negative cases). In discordant cases (7.9%) and in cases not evaluable by FC (2.6%) IgH rearrangement and bcl-1 gene expression, both evaluated by PCR methods, were used to detect bone marrow infiltration with higher precision. These results show that a more complex analysis of bone marrow is needed to diagnose bone marrow infiltration, particularly in samples with minimal residual disease.
Subject(s)
Biopsy, Needle , Bone Marrow Neoplasms/pathology , Bone Marrow/pathology , Flow Cytometry , Lymphoma, B-Cell/pathology , Adult , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Biopsy, Needle/methods , Bone Marrow/immunology , Bone Marrow Examination , Bone Marrow Neoplasms/immunology , Female , Genes, bcl-1 , Humans , Immunophenotyping/methods , Lymphoma, B-Cell/immunology , Male , Middle Aged , Neoplasm Staging , Retrospective StudiesABSTRACT
Naturally occurring cell death is believed to play a major role during the development of the nervous system in the establishment of neuronal architecture. Here we study the effects of cell death inhibition by using a transgenic mouse in which the powerful antiapoptotic gene bcl-2 is expressed in neurons. The retina of this mouse reveals that the general neuronal plan has been maintained. However, bcl-2 overexpression leads to altered frequencies of the major cell types in the retina. Thus, it is possible to estimate cell-type-specific rates of apoptosis by observing the increases in numbers of cells in the bcl-2-overexpressing transgenic mouse.