Cytogenetic studies in acute myelocytic leukemia with special emphasis on the occurrence of Ph1 chromosome.

Cytogenetic studies were carried out on 103 unselected patients with acute mye-logenous leukemia (AML) at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health. Seventy-three patients (70.9%) had a normal karyotype and 30 patients (29.1%) were aneuploid. No unique chromosomal abnormalities were found in patients with aneuploidy; however, there was a significantly higher incidence of G group involvement. Four cases had a history of radiation exposure; three of these four patients had a normal kary-otype and one had one Ph1 chromosome in her bone marrow cells. Another patient with no history of radiation also had one Ph1 chromosome in his marrow cells. Reclassification of AML patients with Ph' chromosomes as a rare entity of blast crisis in chronic myelogenous leu-kemia (CML) rather than as AML's is proposed. Two patients exhibited the 45 chromosome syndrome before the diagnosis of AML was made. The normal and aneuploid groups had about the same median survival time and same median date from diagnosis to chromosome study; however, none of the patients in the aneuploid group lived longer than 26 months after the date of diagnosis, while seven patients (nearly 10%) in the normal group did so, one living over 112 months. STUDIES in acute mvelogenous leukemia have been reported by many investigators.. 7 Anciiploidy, in-eluding both hypodiploidy and hyperdiploidy, has been found in 40-50 per cent of the cases. No consistent chromosome changes were found, and no one chromosome group was especially involved. A few of tile cases were reported to have the Ph1 chromosome.88 We report here an additional 103 patients with acute myelogenous leukemia for further observation and study into questions concerning this disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS Chromosome studies were performed on the bone marrow and peripheral blood of 103 unselected patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) who were diagnosed and From tile National Cancer Institute,