Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter to the Editor
  • Published:

Quantification of marrow CD34+ cells: an important tool for distinguishing between hypoplastic myelodysplastic syndromes and aplastic anemia

Leukemia volume 20, page 2041 (2006)Cite this article

The article by Matsui et al.1 comes 9 years after our own study dealing with the same topic, that is, the value of CD34 enumeration in bone marrow (BM) to separate hypoplastic myelodysplastic syndrome (h-MDS) and aplastic anemia (AA).2 The results that the authors report in their study are remarkably similar to ours. Differences in the microwave retrieval process may explain the slightly different percental values obtained by immunohistochemistry. Similar to the authors, we also found a statistically significant difference between the two groups (h-MDS vs AA).

The paper by Matsui et al.1 is, however, highly inaccurate in the way it quotes our previous study. The authors seem to imply that we did not observe significant differences between the two groups and they stress the ‘overlapping’ results obtained by several groups and by us (see authors' reference 10). This is totally false. Our results speak for themselves. Our conclusions were the following: ‘Bone marrow specimens of h-MDS cases showed statistically higher values of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and CD34 than did those of the AA cases: mean values (±s.d.) of CD34-positive cells in h-MDS, 0.94%±1.1; AA, 0.04%±0.1 (P=0.0002); PCNA-positive cells in h-MDS, 43.59%±13.3; AA, 14.80%±6.4 (P<0.0001)’. Our study confirms that AA is characterized by low expression of PCNA in bone marrow and reduced CD34 frequency compared with h-MDS and supports the concept of an early deficiency of stem cells in the former disorder. The results also illustrate how immunostaining permits a simple distinction of these conditions in routinely processed BM biopsy specimens'. The use of PCNA in this diagnostic context was previously reported by Kitagawa et al.3

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Matsui WH, Brodsky RA, Smith BD, Borowitz MJ, Jones RJ . Quantitative analysis of bone marrow CD34 cells in aplastic anemia and hypoplastic myelodysplastic syndromes. Leukemia 2006; 20: 458–462.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Orazi A, Albitar M, Heerema NA, Haskins S, Neiman RS . Hypoplastic myelodysplastic syndromes can be distinguished from acquired aplastic anemia by CD34 and PCNA immunostaining of bone marrow biopsy specimens. Am J Clin Pathol 1997; 107: 268–274.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Kitagawa M, Kamiyama R, Kasuga T . Expression of the proliferating cell nuclear antigen in bone marrow cells from patients with myelodysplastic syndromes and aplastic anemia. Hum Pathol 1993; 24: 359–363.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Hematopathology, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Clarian Pathology Laboratory (CPL), Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    A Orazi

Authors
  1. A Orazi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Orazi, A. Quantification of marrow CD34+ cells: an important tool for distinguishing between hypoplastic myelodysplastic syndromes and aplastic anemia. Leukemia 20, 2041 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2404393

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2404393

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links