of Western Australia
Drs Wendy Erber (left) and Kathryn Fuller Photo from The University
Researchers say they have developed a new technique for assessing chromosomal abnormalities in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
The team believes their method, called immuno-flowFISH, could be used at the time of CLL diagnosis for disease stratification and after treatment to assess residual disease.
Kathryn A. Fuller, PhD, of The University of Western Australia in Crawley, Australia, and her colleagues described immuno-flowFISH in the journal Methods.
The name “immuno-flowFISH” acknowledges what has been incorporated into this technology.
“Immuno” recognizes that immunology testing is used to identify the CLL cells. “Flow” is used because the machine is an imaging flow cytometer. And “FISH” is the test that identifies the chromosomes inside the cells.
The researchers said they found that immuno-flowFISH could detect trisomic chromosomal abnormalities in cells with the phenotype of CLL.
And immuno-flowFISH provided greater specificity and sensitivity than standard FISH.
In particular, the researchers were able to analyze 10,000 to 20,000 cells in each sample, which is 100 to 200 times greater than traditional FISH methods.
“The imaging cytometer can analyze samples at a rate of up to 2000 cells per second, which means we can investigate a large number of cells in a relatively short amount of time, giving us greater sensitivity,” Dr Fuller said.
“This immuno-flowFISH method is an exciting development in personalizing pathology testing for leukemia,” added study author Wendy N. Erber, MD, DPhil, PhD, of The University of Western Australia.
Dr Erber and her colleagues are now expanding immuno-flowFISH so it can be applied to other malignancies as well.
