CYTOGENETICS FINDINGS OF PATIENTS WITH ACUTE LYMPHOBLASTIC LEUKEMIA IN WEST INDIAN REGION

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is one of the most common malignancies in India. Detection of chromosomal abnormalities by conventional karyotyping and Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) plays a very important role in classification and treatment of ALL patients. The aim of this study was to define the frequency and types of chromosomal aberrations in B-ALL patients of West India. In this study, we analyzed bone marrow samples of 35 (18 adults and 17 childhood) West Indian patients with B-ALL using the conventional G-banding and FISH technique. Total 24 patients (68.57%) showed chromosomal alterations, including numerical and/or structural abnormalities. Hyperdiploidy was most common (11.43%) numerical abnormality while the most common fusion oncogenes were BCR-ABL1/t(9;22) in adults (33.33%) and ETV-RUNX1/t(12;21) in children (23.53%). The incidence of 11q23 and t(1;19) were also high than those reported in the previous studies. There was a difference in the prevalence of abnormalities in the current study, maybe due to the geographical variation and/or small sample size.