[Detection of aberrations in the karyotype of children with acute leukemia: a comparative analysis of cytogenetics and flow cytophotometry].

In the present study a comparative analysis of DNA flow cytometry and cytogenetics was performed in 257 children with acute leukemias to evaluate the comparability of both techniques for the detection of karyotype aberrations. DNA aneuploidies were detected in 88 (34%) patients while cytogenetic anomalies were revealed in 96 (37%) cases. From 76 patients (30%) with cytogenetically inevaluable metaphases 26 (35%) expressed aneuploid DNA stemlines. 67 (79%) of the 85 patients with normal karyotypes or normal modal chromosome numbers had a DNA index of 1.0 while DNA aneuploidies were identified in 18 cases (21%). 4 of 30 patients (13%) with pseudodiploid karyotypes revealed aneuploid DNA stemlines. While aberrations of the chromosome number by 1-3 chromosomes were combined with DNA aneuploidies in 9 of 35 cases (26%) only, all 31 patients with higher numeric chromosome changes also had aneuploid DNA stemlines. These data indicate that cytogenetics and DNA flow cytometry are complimentary methods for the detection of karyotype aberrations and should therefore be applied simultaneously.