Chronic Granulocytic Leukæmia the Chromosomes and the Disease

Absence of the Y Chromosome in Patients with Chronic Granulocytic Leukaemia

“…Unfortunately, we did not investigate the infertility of case 2 further. Our first patient had 2 normal offspring, one son and one daughter, and in this respect was similar to patients previously reported [2,20].…”

“…Several patients [2,5,8,14,20] have survived for over 8 years without transformation to the blast cell phase occurring and have given support to the view that absence of the Y chromosome is associated with a benign course. However, this idea has been chal lenged recently [13] by a report of 2 patients with CGL and absence of the Y chromosome, who had a very short chronic phase of less than 18 months.…”

Cytogenetic Studies in Unusual Forms of Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia

“…Case 4 also showed elevation of leucocyte alkaline phosphatase levels at the time of his blastic termination. An increasing degree of aneuploidy has been reported in blastic transformation of chronic myeloid leukaemia (3,11,19) and was also a feature in our series. Case 4 had a cell-line possessing two Ph1 chromosomes; such a cell line has been found in other patients in blastic crisis (11,14) and in typical chronic myeloid leukaemia.…”

“…His marrow cells contained a stem-line which, as well as possessing a Ph1 chromosome, also lacked a Y sex-chromosome. Other cases of the disease have been reported with a similar stem-line which may be associated with pro longed survival (1,19,22). The presence of such an abnormal stem line may therefore be of prognostic value, and may indicate a subtype of the disease.…”

“…K emp et al (14) reported 2 patients with normal levels; both had received surgical attention a few days previously, which is known to cause an elevation in alkaline phosphatase levels. Speed and Lawler (19) reported a patient whose leucocyte alkaline phosphatase level rose from leukaemic levels after the production of marrow failure following therapy. T eplitz et al (21) have reported elevated leucocyte alkaline phosphatase levels in a Ph1 positive patient who also had ulcerative colitis and, on treatment for the latter, the enzyme fell to a low level.…”