The Clinical Significance Of CD34Antigen Expression In Children’s Acute Leukemia

Objective To investigate the CD34antigen expression of childhood acute leukemia(AL) and its relationship with clinical characteristics and therapy effectiveness.Methods Flow cytometry (FCM) was used to detect the positive expression rate ofCD34in bone marrow of85patients with ALL and42patients with AML. The differencebetween the positive rates of CD34expression in ALL and AML patients were compared.Clinical characteristic and therapy effectiveness,were investigared and difference andprognosis between CD34co-expression AL patients and CD34no-expression patients werecompared.Results1. The positive rate of CD34was43.52%in ALL cases and47.61%in AMLcases. The expression of CD34in AML patients was slightly higher than that in ALL group(P>0.05), but there were no significantly differences.2. The expression of CD34was low inAML-M3patients. In ALL-L3patients, the expression of CD34was low.3. The expression ofCD34had no relationship with the clinical prognosis factors such as sex, WBC counts,platelet counts. But differences existed in extramedullary manifestations such as enlargementof liver, spleen and lymphnodes (X2=3.99, P=0.046) between CD34+and CD34-ALL groups.While no significant differences exsits in AML patients.4. In ALL there was no difference in4-week remission rate after induction therapy between CD34-and CD34+groups. But thecomplete remission rate of CD34+AML was35.0%, lower than that of CD34-AML whichwas72.72%(X2=6.019P=0.014);5. CD34postive may be an index of poor prognosis AML.Conclusion The expression of CD34in AML patients was slightly higher than that in ALL group (P<0.05). In AML-M3patients the expression of CD34was low and there wasno signifieant difference in the clinieal feature and tumor infiltration between CD34+andCD34-patients. The complete remission rate of CD34+AML was35.0%, lower than that ofCD34-AML (72.72%). In ALL-L3patients, the expression of CD34was low. There were nodifferences between CD34+and CD34-ALL with regard to sex, white blood count atdiagnosis. But differences existed in tumor infiltration (X2=3.99, P=0.046), although therewas no difference in4-week remission rate of induction therapy between the two groups.CD34+suggests poor prognosis for AML.