CD133 Expression in Adult Egyptian Acute Leukemia Patients and its Impact on Disease Outcome : NAHLA E.L. SHARKAWY, M.D.*; HASNAA ABO- ELWAFA, M.D.**; AHMED ALLAM, M.D.** and HEBA ABD-ELHAFEZ, M.Sc.**
The Departments of Clinical Pathology, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University* and Clinical Pathology,Sohag Faculty of Medicine, Sohag University** .Journal of the Egyptian Society of Hematology & Research, Vol. 10, No. 2, September: 33-38, 2014
ABSTRACT
Background: CD133 antigen is expressed restrictively by the immature subset of the CD34+ cells; hence it isexpected to be a valuable prognostic marker in acute Leukemia. Aim: To assess CD133 expression frequency in patients with acute leukemia and to evaluate its relation to disease outcome. Patients and Methods: The present study was carried on seventy-five newly diagnosed acute leukemia patients, recruited from hematology/oncology clinic of NationalCancer Institute. The patients were divided into two groups,24 acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and 51 acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML) patients. Patients werefollowed-up through out the period of the study (12 months). All patients were subjected to the complete history taking, thorough clinical examination and laboratory investigations, including complete blood count (CBC),
Bone marrow (BM) aspirate examination, Immunophenotyping and assessment of CD133 expression using EPICS XL Flow Cytometer Results: CD133 was expressed in 28/75 patients (37.3%), 21/51 patients with AML (41.17%) and 7/24 patients with ALL (29.16%). The expression of CD133was higher in AML than ALL without statistical significance (20.41±19.28 vs. 15.2±14.69; p=0.20). No significant correlation was found between CD133 +ve expression and the clinical data as regard sex, age, hepatomegaly,
splenomegaly and lymphadenopathy in both ALL and AML. No significant correlation was found between CD133 +ve expression and the hematological data as regard, WBCs, Hb, platelets and peripheral blasts in both ALL and AML. There was significant positive correlation between CD133 and BM blasts in ALL (r=0.45; p=0.02) , but insignificant in AML. In both ALL and AML, patients with CD133 +ve expression had statistically significant poor clinical outcome (relapse or death) (p=0.012 and
0.021). Patients with CD133+ve expression had shorter overall survival compared with CD133 –ve; this was significant in AML (8.95±0.69 vs. 10.3±0.54 months,
p=0.05) and insignificant in ALL. Journal of the Egyptian Society of Haematology & Research, Vol. 10, No. 2, September: 33-38, 2014
Key Words: AML – ALL – CD133