FLOW-CYTOMETRY IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF CANCER

Flow cytometry has rapidly expanded from basic research to clinical la boratories mainly due to its unique characteristics regarding cell ana lysis. Among the clinical uses of flow cytometry cancer represents one of the most relevant. Several applications of flow cytometry can curr ently be applied to the study of cancer, including the detection of tu mour cell DNA aneuploidy, the analysis of tumour cell proliferation an d the immunophenotyping of leukemias. Although standardized flow cytom etry protocols for these applications are scanty, the clinical value h as bean clearly established. The presence of DNA aneuploidy and a high proportion of S-phase tumour cells have been associated with tumour m aligancy and a poor prognosis. The immunophenotype of leukaemia is of great help both for the diagnosis and classification of chronic lympho proliferative disorders and acute leukaemias, especially in acute lymp hoblastic leukemia cases and the MO, M3-variant, M6 and M7 acute myelo blastic leukaemia subtypes. In addition, it allows the identification of relatively rare leukemia cases such as the biphenotypic and the Nk- cell lineage leukemias. The development of flow cytometry is continuou sly bringing new applications into the clinical laboratory in the area of cancer diagnosis.