Use of flow cytometry immunophenotyping for diagnosis of acute Leukemia at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Eldoret, Kenya

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to compare morphological and flow cytometric diagnosis in patients previously diagnosed with leukemia. The retrospective study was carried out at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital and patient’s data for the period of July 2013 and June 2014 was used. After Institutional Research Ethics approval was granted. Consecutive sampling was done and information was extracted from patient’s files. Data for all who were previously diagnosed with leukemia through both morphology and immunophenotyping was recorded. The data was collected using a data collection form where socio demographic data, morphological and flow cytometry results were recorded. The findings were based on 33 patients who underwent both flow cytometry and bone marrow morphology tests for diagnosis of leukemia between July 2013 and June 2014. The ages of the patients ranged from 3 to 76 years. The ratio of male to female was 1:1.1.Using the Bone marrow morphology, 17 patients had AML and 15 had ALL, one case was inconclusive There were five categories for the flow cytometry. They comprised of B-ALL-6 cases, T-ALL-13 cases, AML-10 cases, Biphynotypic-1 case and inconclusive-1case. There was concordance between the morphological and flow cytometry on 25 out of the 33 cases. As a conclusion we can say that at MTRH, Flow cytometry had a role to play to confirm a definite and a probable diagnosis of patients with acute leukemia.