Comparison of the proliferative capacity of acute leukaemia cells in bone marrow and blood.

Abstract

IN recent discussions1,2 of the proliferative capacity of leukaemic cells in acute leukaemia, these cells have been treated as a uniform population with regard to their generation cycle. The reported findings of these studies that only a small percentage of the leukaemic cells incorporated labelled thymidine after short-term exposure have been taken to suggest a long generation time for these cells and therefore a low proliferative capacity. In the interpretation of these results, however, it is important to know if the leukaemic cell population is indeed relatively uniform with regard to cell division. For this purpose a comparison was made between the rate of incorporation of labelled thymidine by leukaemic cells obtained from blood and bone marrow of patients with acute leukaemia.