Recently, many experts in Indonesia have not made molecular diagnoses in hospital’s medical practice. Many hospitals diagnose children’s Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) based on clinical and cytological examination only. Cytogenetic and molecular analysis have not routinely been applied in clinics. That was delivered by dr. Sri Mulatsih, Sp.AK, medical staff of Hematology-Oncology sub-unit of Children’s Health Science, Sardjito Central Hospital/Faculty of Medicine UGM, in open examination of doctoral program of Medical Science, UGM, Wednesday (10/2).
In front of the board of examiners, Mulatsih defended her dissertation entitled “Fusion Gene of Tel-AML1, BCR-ABL, E2A-PBX1, and MLL-AF4 as Prognosis Factor of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemiaâ€. She conveyed that leukemia diagnosis in health centers or first class hospitals in Indonesia is still based on the finding of immature cell (blast), both in peripheral blood and bone marrow. In Yogyakarta, the leukemia diagnosis is also still based on leukemia cell (blast) in bone marrow with routine painting such as Giemsa and cytochemistry.
Apart from mentioning that problem, Sri Mulatsih also said that publications about molecular genetic of leukimia on children in Indonesia are still very rare and basic data are very much needed. Based on that condition, genetic and molecular researches are needed to see patient profiles, prognostic relationship, and output of therapy. “Therefore, this research is expected to make stratification specifically so that therapy design can be made acurately and prognosis can be estimated well and precisely,†explained the lady born in Klaten, 11 November 1966.