Induction of apoptosis in tumour cells is one of the mechanisms of chemotherapy. Myeloid cell leukaemia type 1 is one of the Bcl-2 protein families that make an important role in chemo-resistance to drugs. Thus, down-regulation of myeloid cell leukaemia type 1 gene is one of the aims in chemotherapy. Umbelliprenin and auraptene are naturally occurring coumarins, which exhibit cytotoxic and apop...

The MLL gene from human chromosome 11q23 is involved in >30 different chromosomal translocations resulting in a plethora of different MLL fusion proteins. Each of these tends to associate with a specific leukaemia type, for example, MLL-AF9 is found mainly in acute myeloid leukaemia. We have studied the role of the Mll-AF9 gene fusion made in mouse embryonic stem cells by an homologous recombin...

Myeloid sarcoma is a rare aggressive tumour that originates from immature extramedullary myeloid cells. It can be seen as a relapse in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia. Sometimes it can be seen in the form of a solid tumour without any evidence of leukaemia. A case of a 44-year-old male patient who was admitted with symptoms and signs of mechanical intestinal bowel obstruction was operated...

Chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) is a malignant myeloproliferative disorder of haemopoietic stem cells, giving rise to abnormally elevated numbers of myeloid cells in peripheral blood and myeloid hyperplasia in bone marrow. Uncontrolled production of myeloid precursors results in increased levels of maturing granulocytes, mainly neutrophils but also eosinophils and basophils. Elevated numbers of...

OBJECTIVES To investigate whether indoor randon or gamma radiation might play a part in myeloid leukaemia as suggested by studies based on crude geographical or geological data for exposure assessment. METHODS For six months randon and gamma radiation was measured with solid state nuclear track detectors and thermoluminescent dosimeters in dwellings of 44 adult male cases of acute myeloid leu...

Donor cell leukaemia (DCL) is a rare complication of allogenic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). We report the case of a female patient with acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL), FAB type M3, who developed acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) type M5 of donor origin 17 years after allogenic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) from her HLA-matched sister. Morphology and immunophenotyping showed di...

BACKGROUND Acute erythroid leukaemia (AEL) is a rare subtype of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), constituting <5% of all the cases of AML. The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001 classified AEL into two types: (1) erythroid/myeloid leukaemia which required ≥50% erythroid precursors with ≥20% of the non-erythroid cells to be myeloid blasts and (2) pure erythroleukemia (pEL) with ≥80% erythrobl...

The switchover from foetal to adult haemoglobin synthesis, which is normally complete by the end of the first year of life, is accompanied by marked changes in the red cell enzyme pattern. In particular, the level of carbonic anhydrase, which is very low in cord blood, rapidly increases during the first year of life to become the most abundant of the red cell nonhaemoglobin proteins. There have...

This study examined the ability of the semi-synthetic vinca alkaloid, Vinorelbine/Navelbine, to cause apoptotic death in freshly obtained primary leukaemia cells from 53 patients with haematological malignancies, including 22 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), 24 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), three patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia in blast crisis (CML...

Introduction The standard approach to the diagnosis of acute leukaemia and myelodysplasia has been based on the morphology and percentage of malignant haemopoietic cells in peripheral blood and in an aspirated sample of bone marrow. The FAB group reports on acute leukaemia have emphasised the value of additional information gained from cytochemistry,' and immunological studies and cytogenetics ...