Growth factors in chronic myelogenous leukemia.

Transforming growth factors (TGFs) are implicated in malignancy, therefore qualitative and quantitative differences of these growth factors in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) in chronic phase has been investigated in this report. Induction of anchorage independent growth of BALB/c 3T3 and NRK-49F fibroblasts was used as an assay to detect TGF-beta activity in sera, serum free leukocyte and stromal conditioned medium of CML patients as well as normal subjects. The data shows that enhanced levels of transforming growth factor (type beta like activity) are detectable in the sera of chronic myelogenous leukemia patients. We believe that the enhanced levels of TGF-beta type activity may have a role in myeloid hyperplasia characteristic of CML patients in chronic phase of the disease.