Greetings all,
Just thought I'd put a point to the clinical flowers in order to
try and get a concensus.
I've been a little concerned of late with the classification of
"intermediate" (ie - surface Mu without light chains) as being between the
"pre B" and "mature B" stagings.
Of the three apparent cases we have had over the last year or so, two of
them had blasts whose cell membranes were inordinately sensitive to
manipulation (lying reagents &/or centrifugation), so much so that the
populations resembled a suspension that had been permeablised without prior
fixation.
Which is exactly my point - could these ALL's be true "pre-B's" (cyto Mu)
whose membranes are "ready permeablised"?, maybe by interaction with EDTA,
to such an extent that you are actually staining the cytoplasmic Mu chains
without knowing it.
Morphologically the cells appear a bit beat up, looking as if they've gone
a few rounds with Tyson, bits chewed out of them etc.
Needless to say all steps were taken to remove free and adhered plasma IgM
before analysis and all were prepared within 3 hours of sample aspiration.
I'd be glad to hear of anyone's experiences/comments.
Wal Sharp
SQU
Oman
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 03 2002 - 11:49:56 EST