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At diagnosis peripheral blood (PB) or bone marrow from patients with juvenile chronic myelogenous leukemia (JCML) have shown two reproducible abnormalities when studied in cell culture: impaired growth of normal hematopoietic progenitors and excessive proliferation of malignant monocyte-macrophage elements. We used these findings to assess quality of treatment response by serially studying PB specimens from four JCML patients (patients 5, 7, 8, and 9) in complete chemotherapy-induced remission. PB readily yielded high numbers of monocyte-macrophage colonies in CFU-C and CFU-GEMM assays when cultured in early remission, and the colonies were cytogenetically proven to have arisen from a malignant clone in patient 9. When studied later in remission, the abnormal cell proliferation persisted in three of the four patients, but in patient 8 PB colony growth resembled controls. Similarly, when PB from patient 8 was studied in liquid culture without using added growth factor, cell proliferation declined identical to controls, whereas PB from the other three patients showed exuberant growth of monocyte-macrophage elements. Patient 8 successfully completed therapy and has been in a long-term, disease-free remission. The other three had recurrent, ultimately fatal disease. The cell cultures have allowed detection of residual abnormal cells that circulate in PB of JCML patients in remission. Although patient numbers were small because of the rarity of JCML, the data suggested that persistence of leukemia cells in these patients had a bearing on clinical outcome.

To characterize juvenile chronic myelogenous leukemia (JCML), the proliferative properties of bone marrow (BM) and peripheral blood (PB) cells from nine patients were studied using assays for CFU-C and CFU- GEMM and liquid cultures. All specimens showed two reproducible abnormalities: impaired growth of normal hematopoietic progenitors and excessive proliferation of monocyte-macrophage colonies in the absence of exogenous colony-stimulating activity (CSA). Cytogenetic studies in one patient indicated that the CFU-C were malignant because BM cells at diagnosis and monocyte-macrophage colonies showed an abnormal karyotype, whereas PB lymphocytes did not. In contrast to JCML, PB from six adults with Philadelphia (Ph1) chromosome-positive chronic myelogenous leukemia (Ph1 + CML) yielded CSA-dependent CFU-C colonies which were composed of granulocytes, macrophages, or both, as well as exuberant growth of BFU-E colonies. Co-cultures of JCML BM adherent or nonadherent cells with normal BM resulted in suppression of normal hematopoietic colony formation. Supernatant from JCML adherent cells in liquid culture or plasma from newly diagnosed untreated JCML patients also suppressed control BM colony growth in a dose-dependent manner. These findings confirm that JCML is a malignant disorder of monocytic lineage and suggest that the mechanism of hematopoietic failure in JCML is mediated by an inhibitory monokine secreted by malignant JCML cells.