Leukemic samples characteristics associated with clonogenic growth.

Abstract

In this study, we attempted to delineate readily assessable characteristics from 100 leukemic samples associated with in-vitro growth. Successful growth defined as production of greater than 30 clusters and/or colonies per culture dish was obtained in 68% of samples. More than 10 colonies were found in 59% and greater than 30 colonies in 51% of cultures, respectively. Leukemic cells from patients previously treated with aggressive cytotoxic chemotherapy grew significantly better than cells from untreated patients, independently of the above definitions of cloning success. Cells from peripheral blood had a weak, albeit significant growth advantage over bone marrow cells (p = 0.032) when cluster growth was taken into account for growth success. When colony growth alone was used as criterium, no growth advantage was found. The morphological subtype and the proliferation kinetics prior to cell plating did not affect cloning success. A high labeling index had predictive value for subsequent growth, but only in bone marrow cells. By multivariate analysis, we found that treatment status was the most important factor correlated with in-vitro growth.