Chromoprobe Multiprobe® - ALL System

The NEW Chromoprobe Multiprobe ALL v2 Panel has been designed to detect multiple rearrangements that occur primarily in B-cell lineage ALL in addition to several T-lineage markers. The panel can be used to rapidly determine genotype in leukaemia patients and aid in prognosis and treatment.

• Eight chromosome abnormalities detected simultaneously in a single FISH

Knowledge of the precise rearrangement involved in the disorder has been shown to have important implications for prognosis of the patient and can thus provide vital diagnostic and patient management information. For ALL the importance of karyotype as a predictor of clinical outcome has been known since 1978; this has led to Cytogenetics, and more recently FISH, to be important aspects of ALL treatment trials. This correlation supports the need for an ALL panel to help fill the gap between diagnosis and prognosis. In so doing, it may help to direct and manage the treatment of this important and relatively common disease.

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia is most common in the young, especially in childhood. It represents 23% of cancer diagnoses among children younger than 15 years of age and occurs at an annual rate of approximately 31 per million. In young adults the median age is around 30 whilst in children the incidence is higher between the ages of 2 to 5.

The disease is classified using the French-American-British (FAB) classification system based in the morphological characteristics of the immature lymphoid cells that accumulate in the bone marrow and peripheral blood. The system classifies cells as either L1, L2 or L3 and each one has a series of characteristic chromosome rearrangements associated with them.

Cytocell's Chromoprobe Multiprobe ALL panel has been designed to detect rearrangements that occur primarily in B-cell lineage ALL, though some T-lineage markers have been included. In addition, in common with the CLL panel, the panel strategy has been developed to give the maximum amount of information from cells at interphase and in some cases is capable of detecting chromosome rearrangements that are undetectable using standard cytogenetics.