Evaluation of CD71 Expression in Acute Leukemia in Egyptian Patients Authors

Authors Yasmin Nabil El-Sakhawy, Shaimaa Abdelmalik Pessar, Noha Hussein Boshnak Ain Shams University Egypt Corresponding Author Yasmin Nabil El-Sakhawy Email: [email protected], Mobile: 1005276531 Abstract Background: CD71 or transferrin receptor is an integral membrane protein that mediates cellular iron uptake. It has been identified as a proliferation marker being expressed on many solid tumours as well as hematological neoplasms. Hence, CD 71 expression was assessed as a flow cytometric marker for leukemia and lymphoproliferative neoplasms. However, only few studies aimed to address its diagnostic and prognostic implications as well as its relation to clinical and laboratory markers. So, our study aimed at evaluation of the significance of CD71 (transferrin receptor 1, TfR-1) as a flow cytometric marker for the diagnosis of acute leukemia (AL). Methods: Seventy two patients diagnosed as acute leukemia; fifty six acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and sixteen Precursor B acute lymphoblastic leukemia (pre B ALL) were enrolled in the study and assessed for CD71 expression on blast cells by flow cytometry. Results: CD71expression was found to be significantly higher in acute myeloid leukemias than precursor B lymphoblastic leukemia (p:0.000) while median of MFI of CD71 was significantly higher in B lymphoblastic leukemia (p:0.016) than acute myeloid leukemia with the most remarkable expression was on poorly differentiated AML FAB subtypes. Conclusion: CD71 may be useful for the differential diagnosis of precursor B-ALL from AML in addition it could be useful in the evaluation of differentiation stage in case of AML.