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Diagnostic features and survival in typical and prolymphocytoid variants of chronic lymphocytic leukemia
Author(s) -
Scott Colin Stephen,
Stark Allistair N.,
Head Christine,
Roberts Bryon E.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
hematological oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.918
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1099-1069
pISSN - 0278-0232
DOI - 10.1002/hon.2900070209
Subject(s) - chronic lymphocytic leukemia , medicine , leukemia , computational biology , oncology , biology
Diagnostic features were evaluated with regards to survival in 203 cases of typical and prolymphocytoid chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Excluding 27 (13 per cent) patients with second malignancies, survival analyses indicated that the prognostic factors with greatest significance were age at presentation (< 65 years and 65 years or more: p = 0.0004), proportions of prolymphocytoid cells (< 10 per cent and 10 per cent or more: p < 0.0001 age corrected) and surface immunoglobulin (SIg) density (weak and more than weak: p = 0.001 age corrected). In contrast, sex, absolute numbers of prolymphocytoid cells, SIg light chain type and FMC7 expression were not prognostically significant. These observations suggest that the recognition and delineation of prolymphocytoid CLL variants by morphological and immunophenotypic criteria, although important in diagnostic terms, may have less relevance with respect to prognosis and patient management.