The Role of CD34+ Cell Count by Flow Cytometry in Diagnosis and Classification of Myelodysplastic Syndrome

To investigate the role of CD34+ cell count by flow cytometry (FCM) in the diagnosis and classification of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), multi-parameter FCM gating strategy was used to enumerate the number of bone marrow CD34+ cells and compared with the number of bone marrow blasts measured by morphology. The results showed that the number of bone marrow blasts by morphology and CD34+ cells count by FCM in MDS group (2.50±3.68%,1.85±2.60%) was significantly higher than that of in control group (0.43±0.64%,0.45±0.24%) respectively. There was no difference between the number of bone marrow blasts by morphology and CD34+ cells count by FCM in control group (P0.05). The number of CD34+ cells count by FCM was lower than the number of bone marrow blasts by morphology in MDS group (P0.05). Among 88 patients with MDS, the result of classification in 71 patients was identical between morphology and FCM and the diagnosis coincidence rate was 80.7%. Except 13 patients who existed abnormal granulocytic series differentiation or bone marrow hemodilution, the diagnosis coincidence rate was 94.7%. The number of bone marrow CD34+ cells count measured by FCM may be used for diagnosis and classification of patients with MDS whose granulocytic series differentiation was normal.