Identification of hyperdiploidy in fixed cells from pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia cases using flow cytometry and cytogenetic analysis

Cytogenetic analysis is of value in predicting clinical outcome of pediatric cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Hyperdiploidy in these patients has significant impact on therapeutic outcome. Because of the technologic limitations of cytogenetic analysis in determining hyperdiploidy in some of these cases, we devised a method to analyze cytogenetically fixed material for cellular DNA content by standard flow cytometric methods. This technique greatly enhances out ability to interpret the observance of single cell anomalies and assess whether these cells are predictive of clonal stemlines or are a result of random events.