CD56 and CD19 Antigens Expression in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Identifies Patients with Adverse Prognosis in Egypt

CD56 was firstly described as a marker of natural killer cells and has been found expressed in several neoplasms including acute myeloid leukemias (AML), the presence of CD56 antigen on blast cells may influence complete remission and survival. CD19 is a B-lymphocyte marker, whose expression is associated with pediatric AML-M2 and the t(8;21) translocation. The biological and clinical significance of CD19 expression in AML is not clear. Patients and Methods: fifty de-novo AML were included, bone marrow aspirate subjected to immunophenotyping for lymphoid marker CD 19 and CD56, and cytogenetic study (karyotyping and FISH) and results were correlated with clinical outcome. Results: Fifty patients were included of which, 22 were male and 28 were female, with a median age of 40 years (16-75). There is a significant correlation between CD56 expression and cytogenetic abnormalities associated with unfavorable prognosis (P = 0.001), while the correlation between CD19 expression and cytogenetic analysis was not significant (p=0.06). CD56& CD19 expression did not influence CR rate (P = 0.51, p=0.08; respectively). Expression of CD56& CD19 had adverse effect on DFS (p=0.03 and p<0.00; respectively), and on OS (p=0.001 and p=0.001; respectively). Conclusion: CD56 and CD19 expression may identify acute myeloid leukemia patients with adverse prognosis.