Prenatal origin of hyperdiploid acute lymphoblastic leukemia in
identical twins    1. Lookup NU author(s)   2. Professor
Christine Harrison   3. Dr Michael Griffiths Author(s)Maia AT,
van der Velden VH, Harrison CJ, Szczepanski T, Williams MD,
Griffiths MJ, van Dongen JJ, Greaves MF Publication type Article
ISSN (print)0887-6924 ISSN (electronic)1476-5551 Studies in
identical twins and with neonatal blood spots (Guthrie cards)
have backtracked the origin of childhood acute leukemia and
their associated chromosomal translocations to before birth.
High hyperdiploidy is the most common genetic abnormality in
childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Evidence for an in
utero initiation of this important genetic event in ALL is
available from blood spots but remains limited. Twin children
with hyperdiploid ALL have not hitherto been reported. We
describe a pair of 2-year-old monozygotic twins with concordant
B-cell precursor ALL and hyperdiploid karyotypes. One twin's
leukemic cells had two rearranged TCRD all