Chromosomes and causation of human cancer and leukemia.VI. Blastic phase, cellular origin, and the Ph1 in CML

Abstract

The cytogenetic, histologic, and pertinent clinical data on 107 cases of CML from our laboratory and those from the literature on the incidence of Ph1-negative cells in marrows of patients with Ph1-positive CML have been collected and summarized. In addition, the distribution of multiple Ph1-chromosomes in 5 cases of CML, with and without the blastic phase, has been described and discussed. The findings served as a basis for caution in utilizing the high incidence of Ph1-positive cells in the marrows of the preponderant number of patients with CML as support for the unicellular stem cell origin of such cells. The occurrence of Ph1-negative cells in significant percentages in some patients with chronic myelocytic leukemia indicates that several other hypotheses, including a multi-stem cell origin of marrow cells, are compatible with the observations in CML.