"T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL), a heterogeneous disease exemplified by two cases and the important role of cytogenetics: a multidisciplinary approach"

Carlos A Tirado; Phillip Starshak; Paul Delgado; Nagesh Rao

doi:10.1186/2162-3619-1-21

"T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL), a heterogeneous disease exemplified by two cases and the important role of cytogenetics: a multidisciplinary approach"

Exp Hematol Oncol. 2012 Aug 20;1(1):21. doi: 10.1186/2162-3619-1-21.

Authors

Carlos A Tirado^#¹, Phillip Starshak^#¹, Paul Delgado², Nagesh Rao¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
² Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL) is a rare form of leukemia composed of mature T-cells that usually presents in older people with a median age of 65. Most cases of T-PLL will harbor chromosomal abnormalities involving 14q11.2 (TCR alpha/delta), 14q32 (TCL1) or Xq28 (MTCP-1), abnormalities of chromosome 8, 12p and deletions of the long arm of chromosomes 5, 6, 11 and 13. Cytogenetics, FISH, comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) , SNP arrays with high resolution analysis have provided more precisely frequent submicroscopic gene and genomic lesions as well as breakpoints involved in the pathogenesis of this disease. One of the cornerstones to diagnose T-PLL are cytogenetic analysis. Here we summarize the current cytogenetic findings and we also describe two distinct cases of T-PLL where cytogenetics, FISH , morphologic analysis and flow cytometry helped to diagnose them accurately.

Publication types

Case Reports