Iranian Journal of Immunology

Immunophenotypic Characterization of the Leukemic B-cells from Iranian Patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: Association between CD38 Expression and Disease Progression

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Mohammad Hojjat Farasangi 1
Mahmood Jeddi-Tehrani 2, 3
Seyed Mohsen Razavi 4
Ramazan Ali Sharifian 5
Ahmad Shamsian Khoramabadi 4
Hojatollah Rabbani 2, 3
Fazel Shokri 1, 6

1 Department of Immunology, School of Public Health, Medical Sciences /Tehran University, Tehran, Iran

2 Immune and Gene Therapy Lab, Cancer Center Karolinska, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden

3 Monoclonal Antibody Research Center, Avesina Research Institute

4 Clinic of Hematology and Oncology, Firozgar Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences

5 Clinic of Hematology and Oncology, Vali-Asr Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Medical Sciences/ University of Tehran

6 National Cell Bank of Iran, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22034/iji.2008.17097
Abstract
Background: Patients with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) have hetero-geneous clinical courses, thus several biological parameters need to be added to the cur-rent clinical staging systems to predict disease outcome. Recent immunophenotypic stud-ies performed mainly in Western populations have demonstrated the prognostic value of CD38 and ZAP-70 expression in B-CLL.
Objectives: To investigate the expression pat-tern of a variety of membrane antigens on leukemic cells from Iranian patients with CLL and to find out if there are any differences in the expression of these markers between in-dolent and progressive groups.
Methods: In the present study, peripheral blood samples from 87 Iranian patients with B-CLL were analysed by flow cytometry.
Results: In all cases, the neoplastic cells displayed B-CLL phenotype (CD5+/CD19+/sIg+). The vast ma-jority of the cases expressed CD23, but failed to stain for CD3 or CD14. The leukemic cells of most patients expressed CD27 (84/87, 95.4%) and CD45RO (74/87, 83.9%) molecules, suggesting a memory B-cell phenotype. Comparison between the indolent (n=42) and progressive (n=37) patients revealed significantly higher frequency and inten-sity of CD38 expression in progressive group (40.5%) compared to indolent (11.9%) pa-tients (p<0.05). None of the other membrane antigens were differentially expressed in these two groups of patients.
Conclusion: Our results obtained in an Asian ethnic popula-tion confirm and extend previous findings obtained from Western populations regarding the association of CD38 expression and disease progression in B-CLL.

Keywords

Immunophenotyping
B-CLL
Indolent
Progressive
CD38
Iranian Journal of Immunology
Volume 5, Issue 1
Winter 2008
Pages 25-35

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