Between August 1993 and December 1996, 251 acute leukaemias, 151 myeloid(140 In adults and 11 in children below 15 years) - and 70 lymphoblastic B (31 in adults and 39 in children) where immunophenotyped by flow cytometry in our department. We analysed the expression of the following markers: CD2, CD3, CD3cit, CD4, CD5, CD7, CD8, CD10, CD11c, CD13, CD14, CD15, CD19, CD20, CD22, CD22cit, CD33, CD34, CD38, CD56, CD61, CD71, CD117, TdT, MPO, HLADR. Cytoplasmic and surface light chains of Ig's were done in B leukaemias.

EDTA anticoagulated bone marrow and/or peripheral blood samplers were stained with monoclonal antibodies for the above markers, conjugated with FITC or PE. The samples were lysed with FACS Lysing Solution® acquired in a FACScan® cytometer and analysed with the LYSYS II version 1.1.® program. The “cut-off” of positivity for each marker was 20% in the gate of analysis.

Results: Numbers shows percentages of positivity Table

Table 1
Full size table

Conclusion: the only significant differences found, using x test between adults and children were CD13 in myeloid leukaemias (p=.014) and CD71 in lymphoblastic B leukaemias (p=.019).