Spontaneous premature chromosome condensation in children with acute leukemia

Abstract

Investigations of spontaneous premature chromosome condensation (PCC) in children with malignant disease are rare. The frequency and biological and clinical significance of PCC in the malignant process is not clear. Here we present the results of PCC analysis in 85 children with acute leukaemia. Analysis was performed at diagnosis on slides obtained by unstimulated bone marrow and/or peripheral blood culture. PCC were observed in 6 (7.1%) patients, 3 (9.4%) out of 32 patients with AML and in 3 (5.7%) out of 53 children with ALL (including 3 patients with morphologically unclassified acute leukaemia but phenotypically they fitted ALL). This study gives additional evidence that PCC is not a rare phenomenon in human malignancies, however, it does not support the idea that cell fusion is one of the mechanisms of the origin of tumour cell genomic variability at least in childhood acute leukaemia.