| Research Abstract |
During the Vietnam War, southern Vietnam was exposed to a large amount of dioxin, a strong human carcinogen. Although we have observed much shorter survival in southern Vietnamese CML patients (13.1±11.6 mo) compared with that of northern Vietnamese CML patients (31.5 ±7.1 mo), the cause remains to be clarified.
Here, we report cytogenetic and molecular findings of 47 CML patients. Cytogenetically, the Philadelphia (Ph) translocation was found in 44 (93.6%). Among the remaining patients with Ph(-) CML, 2 exhibited BCR/ABL transcripts but no BCR/ABLFISH fusion signals, suggesting the existence of 2 clones with and without BCR/ABL fusion gene. Surprisingly, in 17 patients (36.2%) (4 at diagnosis, 11 during chronic phase and 2 in accelerated phase), we have found several unique secondary chromosome abnormalities including trisomy 13, partial trisomy 13, and abnormalities of 1p, 3p, 6p, 7p, 10p and 11p, which are different from so-called "additional chromosome abnormalities" observed in blastic phase CML. The Ph translocation with der(9) deletion was found in 11 patients (23.4%) with FISH. Among them, 2 had 2 clones, with and without der(9) deletion, suggesting that der(9) deletion would occur in a subset of patients during disease progression. These observations point to pre-existing genetic instability which would induce various secondary chromosome abnormalities and multiple clones, resulting in shorter survival.
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