الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
AML represents a group of heterogeneous diseases marked with clonal proliferation of abnormal blast cells in the bone marrow interfering with the normal hematopoiesis. It is the most prevalent form of acute leukaemia in adults representing about 25% of all leukemia types and the most common cause of leukemia-associated mortality in adults.
AML with monocytic differentiation is a subset of AML-NOS that includes acute myelomonocytic leukaemia (FAB-M4), acute monoblastic leukaemia (FAB-M5a), and acute monocytic leukaemia (FAB-M5b). Monocytic lineage AML has a high risk for extra medullary infiltration, particularly of the CNS, high leukocytic count, coagulation defects, high relapse rate and particular cytogenetic aberrations are seen in monocytic lineage AML.
With the development of myeloid and monocytic specific panels, flowcytometric immunophenotyping is now better suited for the identification of monocytes due to its extensive antibody panels such as CD14, CD15, CD34, CD36, CD11b, CD13, CD4, D64, CD11c and CD117. However, none of these individual markers is sensitive or specific for monocytes, so there is a striking need to explore novel monocytic markers.
The ILT3 or CD85K molecule, an immunoglobulin superfamily, is a transmembrane protein immune inhibitory receptor particularly expressed by myeloid APCs as monocytes and at high levels by tolerogenic DCs, where it plays an essential role in regulatory T cells generation. Structurally, ILT3 contains ITIMs in their cytoplasmic region like killer cell inhibitory receptors.
Our study investigated the expression of ILT3 or CD85K in AML by flow cytometric innumophenotyping in order to evaluate its possible use as a diagnostic marker of monocytic AML and in AML minimal residual disease monitoring.
This study was conducted on about 105 adult patients including 55 cases with monocytic AML, 35 AML cases without monocytic differentiation, and 15 cases of similar age and sex as a control group.