The number of mitochondria in lymphocytes of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia may be useful in evaluating the clinical status of the disease, the work of a group of investigators in Detroit indicates.
When the lymphocytes of patients with untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia were characterized by the number of mitochondria per cell, three different population groups were found. These had mean values of approximately 20, 25, and 30 mitochondria per cell.
Lymphocytes obtained from the blood of four male and two female Caucasian patients were used for the study by Paul L. Wolf, MD, and co-workers at Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Detroit Institute of Cancer Research. The co-workers are Samuel Albert, MD, and William Moore.
Marked Variation
The marked variation in mitochondrial content of lymphocytes from the patients suggests that chronic lymphocytic leukemia is not a single morphological entity, Dr. Wolf told the annual meeting in