[Cytomorphological and functional investigations in six cases of "hairy cell leukemia" (author's transl)].
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to G Scapoli.
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A case of acute myelomonocytic leukema is described, which was characterized cytogenetically by the presence of centromeric elongations, somatic crossovers, selective endoreduplication figures, and multiple chromosomal clusters. The demonstration of these phenomena by selective staining techniques for the chromosome bands (Q, C, G and S) and the nucleolar areas (acridine-orange, amido black B 10) raises some biological aspects involved in the proliferation of leukemic cells, such as nucleolar persistance during the metaphase and the non-separation of chromatids in the clusters during the anaphase. These structural abnormalities may represent the background for the explanation of the appearance of subclones in neoplastic disorders.
Nucleolar persistence in metaphase plates is a feature observed in most of the cells in neoplastic processes. Pathological persistence or fragmentation of the nucleoli is thought to be the cause of some numerical chromosomal aberrations due to non-disjunction of the chromatids, with particular involvement of the satellite chromosomes. Thus, a combined selective staining of both the nucleoli (amido black 10B according to Mundkur and Brauer's cytochemical technique) and the chromosomes (neutral red) was applied to the metaphase plates of patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia in the blastic crisis. Duplicated Ph1 was associated with amido black-stained areas at a very high rate in some cases. Since the blastic crisis in chronic myeloid leukaemia is characterized by the appearance of an increased number of immature, highly nucleolated cells, these findings lend support to the hypothesis that the duplication of the Ph1 represents a feature possibly favoured by the pathological persistence of nucleolar RNA-rich structures in the metaphase.
Chromosomal studies have been performed in 2 patients with angio-immunoblastic lymphadenopathy. In both the cases the presence of abnormal cell lines characterized by marker chromosomes has been detected. Application of banding techniques allowed to detect the structural composition of the marker chromosome in 1 of the cases and to show a clonal evolutive pattern of the rearranged chromosomal set; In the same patient a consistent Y loss observed in the major fraction of the investigated metaphases did not appear to be related to any defined rearrangement of the karyotype. Longitudinal chromosomal studies are stressed in order to better correlate th cytogenetic abnormalities and the immunoreactive picture of the lymph nodes along the course of the disease.