CD7-positive acute myeloid leukemia: further evidence of cellular immaturity.

Among 63 cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), 14 were found to express the CD7 antigen, a cell surface marker usually found at an early stage during T lineage differentiation. The CD7-positive AML cases consisted of 5 cases of M1, 3 cases of M2, 3 cases of M4, 1 case of M5, 1 case of M6 and 1 case of M7. Among these 63 cases, the proportion of blast cells expressing the CD34 antigen was examined. The proportion of CD34-stained cells among the CD7-positive AML cases, although varying, was significantly larger than that among the CD7-negative AML cases (P less than 0.05). As the CD34 antigen was expressed on hematopoietic progenitor cells and was considered to reflect an early hematopoietic stage, the high proportion of cells expressing CD34 among the CD7-positive AML cases may support the notion that CD7-positive AML cells are immature.