The authors investigated expression of the membrane antigens CD13, CD15, CD33, and CD34 by flow cytometry in elderly patients with newly diagnosed AML and analyzed whether these parameters had clinical or prognostic relevance to help physicians in their choice of therapy.
CD34+ myeloid cells from AML and high-risk myelodysplastic syndrome patients displayed higher expression of bcl-2 (P <0.0001) and lower reactivity for APO2.7 (P=0.002) compared with low-risk myelodysplastic syndrome and normal controls.
We report here a prospective multicenter study in which we examined and quantified the expression of the 3 classes of CD34 on fresh leukemic blast cells from 300 cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).