Gene diagnosis and successful reversion in a patient with preleukemia

Zhonghua Nei Ke Za Zhi. 1992 Sep;31(9):539-42, 586.

[Gene diagnosis and successful reversion in a patient with preleukemia]

[Article in Chinese]

Feng BZ, Lei JL, Yang XY.

Institute of Hematology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Tianjin.

According to the FAB classification, a patient (case 1) could not be diagnosed as
MDS-RA, although she had clinical features of MDS, as compared with another
patient (case 2) who was diagnosed as RAS and had abnormal karyotype (20q- and
5q-) of bone marrow (BM) cells. BM cells of the two patients were SCD (sister
chromatid differentiation) negative. Rearrangement of c-erbB and c-erbA was found
in the genome of the BM cells in both patients, when southern blot hybridization
was performed with probe v-erbB+A. Therefore, case 1 could be diagnosed as
preleukemia. During a period about 3 years of treatment with the drug stanozolol
in case 1 there was good effect and successful reversion was obtained. She had
then normal hematologic and cytogenetic patterns of BM and PB and the
rearrangement of c-erbB of BM cells also disappeared. She has worked for two
years since then. The mechanism of effective treatment and successful reversion
was discussed briefly. Probe v-erbB was shown to be useful in investigation of
gene diagnosis of preleukemia or MDS (shown elsewhere).