Cell Proliferation in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia under Discontinuous Treatment from Diagnosis to Blastic Crisis

Abstract

There are no methods available presently to study the growth of the whole body pool of immature myeloid cells in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). It is evident, from clinical observation, that this pool is greatly increased in CML, that it can be considerably reduced repeatedly by specific treatments and that it can regrow after cessation of therapy. Moxley and coworkers [1] and Galbraith [2] have shown that immature myeloid cells in the blood are exchanging rapidly with marrow and spleen immature myeloid cells. Vincent and coworkers [3] have shown that the labeling indices of myelocytes after in vivo or in vitro incubation with tritiated thymidine are similar in the blood and in the bone marrow of these patients and that the time for DNA synthesis is similar in blood and bone marrow (BM).