Background: Detection of aberrancies in newly diagnosed Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) patients by flow cytometry is of diagnostic and prognostic importance. This study assessed the frequency of expression of aberrant Immunophenotype in newly diagnosed AML patients. Objectives: To assess the frequency of expression of aberrant immunophenotype in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia. Method: This observational cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Haematology, BSMMU, Dhaka, for 12 months duration following ethical approval. Total 100 newly diagnosed AML patients were analysed by multiparametric flow cytometry using a panel of monoclonal antibodies. Antigen expression was rated as positive when the percentage of positive blast cells was ?20%. Result: Aberrant lymphoid markers were found in 56% AML cases, wherein 26% had B-cell markers only, 23% had T-cell markers only and 7% had presence of both T-cell and B-cell markers. CD7 (23%) was the most common aberrant marker, followed in decreasing order CD10 (22%), CD19 (11%), CD4 (6%), CD2 (4%) and CD20 (1%). Conclusion: More than half of AML patients had aberrant lymphoid phenotypes. Though aberrance of B-cell markers and T-cell markers are almost same, CD7 was the most common aberrant immunophenotype expressed in AML patients. Further study can be undertaken to correlate prognostic and therapeutic response with these aberrancies.
Nasrin et al. (Fri,) studied this question.