DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW DETECTION METHOD OF THE MINIMAL RESIDUAL TUMOR CELLS

背景：准确检测少量白血病细胞对急性白血病的诊断和治疗具有重要意义。尽管已经开发了几种携带原始细胞检测程序的自动血细胞分析仪，但它们没有发挥足够的检测灵敏度来超过人工眼球计数方法的灵敏度。方法：我们结合XE-2100提出的5个细胞参数的数值信息，构建了一个新的BLAST检测程序。与XE-2100原装的BLAST FLAG程序比较，评价了该BLAST多评分程序的敏感性和特异性。结果：BLAST多评分程序的BLAST检测灵敏度较BLAST程序有较大提高，而特异性没有明显降低。在急性髓系白血病(AML)患者的临床病程中，少数白血病成髓细胞的检测灵敏度高于眼球计数法。结论：BLAST多评分程序的日常实际应用将有助于以较低的成本敏感、客观、实时地评价AML的治疗。

Background : For the diagnosis and therapy of acute leukemia, it is important to detect a small number of leukemic cells precisely. Although several automated hematology analyzers that carry blast-detecting programs have been developed, they do not exert sufficient detection sensitivity to exceed the sensitivity of manual eye counting method. Methods: We constructed a new blast-detecting program by combining the numerical information acquired from five cytometric parameters presented by XE-2100. The sensitivity and specificity of this blast multi-scoring program were assessed in comparison with the‘Blasts' flag program equipped originally in XE-2100.Results : The blast-detecting sensitivity was found to be highly improved in the blast multi-scoring program as compared with the‘Blasts' flag program without much reducing the specificity. A small number of leukemic myeloblasts were detected at the better sensitivity than the eye counting method in the clinical course of the patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).Conclusions : The daily practical use of this blast multi-scoring program will surely contribute to sensitive, objective and real-time evaluation of the treatment of AML with a low cost.