Expression characteristic of CD38 and the relation of prognosis in childhoód acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Objective To investigate CD38 expression characteristic and the relation of clinic prognosis in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia,in order to improve individual treatment.Methods Seventy-nine patients with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia(B-lineage) were enrolled into this study.Four-color fluorochrome labeled monoclonal antibodies were applyed to analyze the cell immunophenotypes and minimal residual disease screening.When CD38 low-expression was considered to be the effective screening marker and be used to continue monitoring.All patients were divided into CD38 low-expression groups and CD38 high-expression groups,to compared the immunophenotyping characteristic,risk stratification and survive rate of the two groups.All datas were assessed by means of SPSS16.0 and a P value of 0.05or less was considered to indicate statistical significance.Results All of 79 newly diagnosed ALL-B,The group of CD38 low-expression were 50/79 (63.3％) while the other group were 29/79(36.7％).of all patients,11 chilldren showed only a screening indicator-CD38/CD10/CD34/CD19,while 46 belonged to more than one markers (Such as TdT/CD10/CD34/CD19,CD66c/CD10/CD34/CD19 and CD45/CD10/CD34/CD19) and 18 no markers.The stratification of CD38 low-expression and CD38 high-expression groups as follows:21/5 patients with low-risk,14/15 with medium risk and 15/9 with high-risk.In the CD38 low-expression group,Early Pre-B 33,Pre-B 12,Mature-B 5,while in the CD38 high-expression group,Early Pre-B 21,Pre-B 5,Mature-B 3.This study showed that the high-risk stratification in the CD38 high-expression group was obviously higher than the CD38 low-expression group(F=6.24,P=0.044),but the survival time was signicantly shorter than CD38 low-expression group (x2 ＝ 5.22,P =0.022) and the difference was statistically significant.Conclusion CD38 as a MRD monitoring indicator of most acute lymphoblastic leukemia when it low-expression,CD38 high-expression in newly diagnosis childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia(B-lineage) may be an independent risk factor for predicting poor prognosis. Key words: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia;  CD38;  Immunophenotyping;  Minimal residual disease ;  Prognosis