Study of serum survivin level in childhood Acute leukemia

Leukemias are heterogeneous group of disorders of the pluripotent stem cells. Acute leukemia is a rapidly progressing disease that arises from deregulated clonal expansion of immature lymphoid or myeloid progenitor cells that are blocked at particular stage of differentiation. This results in accumulation of immature functionless cells in the marrow and blood. The marrow is no longer capable of producing enough normal red cells, white blood cells and platelets.Programmed cell death is a major component of both normal development and disease. It is a genetically controlled mechanism of cell death involved in the regulation of tissue homeostasis.Survivin is an inhibitor of apoptosis of the IAP gene family . It is 16.5KD, encoded by a gene mapped on chromosome 17q25. It is expressed in the G2/M phase of cell cycle in a cycle regulated manner.Survivin has a role counteracting apoptosis and regulating cell division. Over expression of survivin in cancer can overcome an apoptotic check point and favor aberrant progression of transformed cells through mitosis.This study was designed to assess serum survivin protein level in newly diagnosed leukemic patients versus leukemic patients who developed remission and also versus the control group .In addition, a correlation study was held on between serum survivin level and some hematological parameters in the newly diagnosed leukemic cases. Moreover, the relation between serum survivin protein and the clinical presentation of newly diagnosed leukemic patients was investigated..