Studies of banded chromosomes in patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia, including one patient with the Burkitt-type (L3).

Studies on banded chromosomes of 10 patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) are reported. The group is small but quite representative. 60% of the patients had a clonal abnormality: a Philadelphia chromosome and chromosome #7 abnormalities were seen in one patient; a marked hypodiploid clone (32 chromosomes) and its duplicate was seen in another; hyperploidy of 49 chromosomes (+4 +17 +21) was seen in a third patient, and 3 patients were found to have a 6q-abnormality. One of these patients had an L3, Burkitt-type of ALL. A translocation t(8;14) has frequently been found in this type of ALL. The findings confirm the nonrandomness of particular cytogenetic abnormalities in ALL and the possibility of the existence of different aberrations in apparently identical clinical entities.