Do All Leukemic Cells Have an Abnormal Karyotype?

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, analysis of the chromosome pattern in bone-marrow cells from patients with leukemia has resulted in a number of remarkable observations.¹ The increase in our understanding of this pattern has been especially rapid in the past eight years, because various chromosome-banding techniques developed in the early 1970s have been used to study chromosomes from leukemic cells. These techniques permit precise identification of each human chromosome and of segments of these chromosomes. As a result, nonrandom patterns of chromosomal gains or losses have been identified in leukemic cells. Probably of greater biologic importance is the observation that . . .