Purine metabolism enzymes and immunological phenotype in chronic B-cell malignancies: chronic lymphocytic leukemia, prolymphocytic leukemia and hairy cell leukemia.

The chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the prolymphocytic leukemia and the hairy cell leukemia of B-cell immunophenotype are closely related disorders, but differ in their cytomorphological and clinical features. In an attempt to differentiate further among these forms of leukemia some immunological and cytochemical markers were studied. Simultaneously we measured adenosine deaminase and purine nucleosidephosphorylase activities by a method of paper radiochromatography in peripheral blood/bone marrow leukemic cells from 23 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, 5 patients with prolymphocytic leukemia, one with prolymphocytoid transformation of chronic lymphocytic leukemia and 15 patients with hairy cell leukemia. The mosaic of immunological and cytochemical markers based on the sum of positive and negative features allowed for the correct diagnosis in a majority of cases. From the number of 43 investigated cases we found the typical enzyme patterns in 39 of them. On the basis of purine enzyme activity we were able to differentiate between chronic lymphocytic leukemia versus prolymphocytic and hairy cell leukemia. In one patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia we could detect very early stage of prolymphocytoid transformation by increased activity of purine nucleosidephosphorylase activity. There were only two patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who were assigned to the prolymphocytic leukemia on the basis of purine nucleosidephosphorylase activity and two patients with hairy cell leukemia with atypical enzyme pattern attributable to the nonrepresentative number of pathological cells in the peripheral blood. Our study showed that purine nucleosidephosphorylase activity in leukemia cells may be useful as an additional parameter in the distinction of prolymphocytic from lymphocytic leukemia and that it may represent an enzymatic marker for early detection of prolymphocytoid transformation of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Characteristic purine enzyme pattern was found also for diagnostic confirmation of hairy cell leukemia.