Thirty patients in the blastic phase of chronic granulocytic leukemia were treated with a combination of vincristine, 2.0 mg/sq m weekly, and prednisone, 60 mg/sq m orally each day. Remission was achieved in nine patients (30%), six of whom had a complete remission, and three had a good partial remission. The survival of responding patients was significantly improved over the nonresponders. Cyt...

The incidence of circulating granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming cells (CFU-c) was determined in 60 patients in different stages of chronic myelocytic leukemia (CML). Like others, we found uniformly increased circulating CFU-c during the uncontrolled chronic stage, decreasing to values indistinguishable from those of healthy controls during remission. Unlike some investigators who described g...

A comparison was made between the agar and methylcellulose culture systems with respect to their ability to support the clonal growth of leukemic cells obtained from patients with acute myeloblastic leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and chronic myelogenous leukemia in blastic crisis. The num ber of clusters and/or colonies formed and the morphology of the cells within them varied from pat...

Transformation of chronic lymphocytic leukemia to acute lymphoblastic leukemia is extremely rare. We describe an elderly patient whose lymphocytes on presentation were morphologically characteristic of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, but changed to lymphoblasts in a very short interval. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were tested for surface immunoglobulins and T65 antigen at initial presentat...

Blastic natural killer (NK) cell neoplasms are rare, highly aggressive malignancies with a poor prognosis. They have a predilection for the skin, and disseminate rapidly into the blood, bone marrow, lymph nodes, and extranodal organs.1 Because of their rarity, there is no standard treatment. Chemotherapy alone does not result in long-term remissions2; therefore, stem cell transplantation is ess...

As an initial step in evaluating the role of tumor suppressor genes in leukemogenesis, we surveyed primary leukemia cells from 130 patients for possible deletion of the retinoblastoma susceptibility (Rb) gene by Southern blot analysis. Two of them clearly showed homozygous deletion of Rb alleles. The first patient was a pre-B acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) associated with a cytogenetic transloca...

A comparison was made between the agar and methylcellulose culture systems with respect to their ability to support the clonal growth of leukemic cells obtained from patients with acute myeloblastic leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and chronic myelogenous leukemia in blastic crisis. The number of clusters and/or colonies formed and the morphology of the cells within them varied from pati...

Second generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors have recently been introduced as first-line treatment for chronic phase chronic myelogenous leukemia. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of 2(nd) generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors versus imatinib as first-line treatment for these patients. We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials comparing 2(n...