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Ten patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and a chromosome anomaly involving band 14q11 are described. Mitotic index of bone marrow blasts was high in all patients (average 3.0%). Lymphoid morphology of the leukemic blasts, however, varied somewhat among the patients. The leukemic cells of 5 patients showed an immunophenotypic profile corresponding to early or common thymic differentiation stages whereas 5 children showed strong expression of CD3 suggesting a more mature thymic phenotype. Leukemic karyotypes revealed a modal chromosome number of 46 in 9 cases, 92 in one case. A chromosome translocation t(11; 14) (p13; q11) was found in 5 cases, a t(1; 14) (p32; q11) in 2 cases, a t(10; 14) (q24; q11) in one case, a (hitherto undescribed) t(12; 14) (q22; q11) in one case, and an inv(14) (q11 q32) in one patient. Additional abnormalities were t(3; 10), t(7; 9), dup (7q), del (6q), del (10q), and del (1 q). Of 32 cases with T-cell ALL successfully karyotyped in our laboratory 15 (=47%) had structural aberrations involving chromosomes 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14. Ten of these 15 patients (=67%) had a chromosome 14q11 anomaly. It is concluded that chromosome band 14q11, the gene locus of the T-cell receptor α-chain, is the most common site for structural chromosome aberrations in T-cell ALL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-one patients with chronic granulocytic leukaemia underwent marrow transplantation. The donors were human-lymphocyte antigen-identical siblings in 19 cases. In the remaining 2 cases the donor was a parent in one and an identical twin in the other. The preparatory regimen included cyclophosphamide and 8.6 Gy total body irradiation given at either a dose of 0.1 Gy/min or 0.04 Gy/min. Five patients were in the accelerated phase of the disease, one was in remission following blast crisis, and the rest were all in the chronic phase. After chemotherapy and irradiation, all patients received bone marrow transplants. To date, nine patients are still alive, with a median survival of 64 days (range 28-683 days). One patient continued to have leukaemic cells and in another, the leukaemia recurred 18 months following transplantation. Interstitial pneumonitis was the cause of death of eight patients (38%). Graft-versus-host disease occurred in ten patients (47%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]