Cold synchronization for the study of peripheral blood and bone marrow chromosomes in leukemias and other hematologic disease states.

A method of cold-shock synchronization of immature granulocytic cells from peripheral blood or bone marrow is described. It is shown that this method provides an increased yield of early metaphases and offers advantages over others currently employed. The peaks of mitotic activity following the cold-shock treatment differ for patients with acute nonlymphoblastic leukemia (ANLL) and patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) by an interval of 2 h. This method is considered to be suitable for routine cytogenetic studies on hematological patients.