A novel method for the evaluation of bone marrow samples from patients with pediatric b-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia—multidimensional flow cytometry

Abstract

Multicolor flow cytometry (FC) evaluation has a key role in the diagnosis and prognostic stratification of ALL. Our aim was to create new analyzing protocols using multidimensional dotplots. Seventy-two pediatric patients with ALL were included in this single-center study. Data of a normal BM sample and three BM samples of patients with BCP-ALL were merged, then all B cell populations of the four samples were presented in a single radar dot-plot, and those parameters and locations were selected in which the normal and pathological cell populations differed from each other the most. The integrated profile of immunophenotype resulted in a simple, rapid, and accurate method. There were no significant differences between the percentages of lymphoblasts in the detection of minimal residual disease (MRD) by multidimensional or conventional FC method (p = 0.903 at Day 15 and p = 0.155 at Day 33). Furthermore, we found associations between the position and the number of clusters of blast cells in the radar plots and cytogenetic properties (p = 0.002 and p < 0.0001 by the position and p = 0.02 by the number of subclones). FC analysis based on multidimensional dot-plots is not only a rapid, easy-to-use method, but can also provide additional information to screen cases which require detailed genetic examination.