Terminal Transferase: Its Evolving Role

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Abstract
Eventually, most patients with chronic myelocytic leukemia enter an aggressive phase of their illness, termed "blast crisis," that resembles acute leukemia except in its refractoriness to conventional chemotherapy. However, about 30 per cent of patients with leukemia in the blast-crisis phase achieve remission with rather simple chemotherapy: vincristine and prednisone. Considerable effort has been expended on defining the clinical, morphologic, cytochemical and cytogenetic characteristics of this subgroup of responsive patients. Lymphoblastic morphology and the finding of fewer than the normal diploid number of chromosomes are the two features most likely to be associated with response to vincristine and prednisone. However, . . .