Application value of peripheral blood leukemia cells in the diagnosis of acute leukemia recurrence by flow cytometry

Objective To investigate the effect of flow cytometry on the detection of peripheral blood leukemia cells in the diagnosis of acute leukemia recurrence. Methods 200 patients with acute leukemia were divided into two groups according to the type of acute leukemia: acute myeloid leukemia (AML) group (120 cases), and acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) group (80 cases). The peripheral blood cells were detected by flow cytometry, and the morphological results of bone marrow cells were used as the gold standard. Then analyzed the diagnostic effect of peripheral blood test results on acute leukemia, and the relationship between minimal residual disease in peripheral blood and disease recurrence. Results Flow cytometry was more sensitive in the diagnosis of AML and ALL (96.3% and 88.7%). The recurrence rate of patients with negative minimal residual disease detected by flow cytometry was 26.5%, and the recurrence rate of positive patients was 75.3%, the recurrence rate of positive patients was significantly higher than that of negative patients (P<0.05). In the AML group and the ALL group, the disease recurrence rates of patients with positive minimal residual disease were 75.0% and 75.8% respectively, and the disease recurrence rates of negative patients were 25.0% and 27.8% respectively, the disease recurrence rates of positive patients of the two groups were significantly higher than those of negative patients (P<0.05). Conclusion Flow cytometry detection of peripheral blood cells has a high diagnostic sensitivity on acute leukemia. Detection of minimal residual disease in peripheral blood has certain guiding value for clinical evaluation of acute leukemia recurrence. Key words: Flow cytometry; Acute lymphoblastic leukemia; Acute myeloid leukemia; Peripheral blood; Recurrence