الفهرس 
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Abstract
CD56 (NCAM) antigen is a member of immunoglobulin super family. It is commonly expressed in natural killer cytotoxic lymphocytes (NK cells), CD56 mediates adhesion between cells through homophilic bonds, it has been implicated as having a role in neurite outgrowth, synaptic plasticity, learning and memory.
The acute leukemia has the lowest survival rates in all cancers. So, the assessment of the prognostic factors in acute leukemia is very important.CD56 expression was described to have a prognostic impact in acute leukemias.
Detection of CD56 expression at diagnosis is of high clinical relevance, because its expression has a direct consequence for treatment stratification, being associated with poor prognosis.
The aim of the present study was to determine the expression of CD56 antigen on the surface of myeloid and lymphoid blasts, from patients with acute leukemia, in a trial to correlate the expression of this molecule to various clinical and laboratory data, and determining its diagnostic value for acute leukemia immunophenotyping, as well as its relation to treatment response.
The current study was carried out on 40 newly diagnosed acute leukemia patients. All patients were subjected to complete history taking, thorough clinical examination and laboratory investigations including: complete hemogram, bone marrow aspiration with examination of Leishman-stained peripheral blood and bone marrow smears, immunophenotyping and flow cytometry analysis of CD56 expression using CD56 MoAb on the leukemic blast cell.
CD56 expression was not associated with any of the studied demographic, clinical or laboratory variables. The expression of CD56 had no relationship with the clinical prognostic factors such as sex, age, the percentage of leukemic cells in peripheral blood and in bone marrow, WBC counts, hemoglobin concentration and platelet counts.
The results of this work showed a significant positive association between patients who did not respond to chemotherapy and positive CD56 expression. So, CD56 could be regarded as an independent risk factor for the prediction of poor response to chemotherapy.