Aberrant Expression of CD56 in Hematologic Malignancies

Introduction: Hematologic malignancies (HMs) are a wide range of diseases with varying rates, prognoses, and origins resulting from bone marrow or lymphatic system cells transforming into malignant cells. The typical phenotypic marker of natural killer cells, CD56, is expressed by various immune cells, including monocytes, dendritic cells, alpha and beta T cells, and gamma and delta T cells. These CD56-expressing cell types have potent immunostimulatory effector capabilities, such as generating T helper 1 cytokines and effective cytotoxicity. So, we aimed to look for ectopic expression of CD56 in different hematologic malignancies and to find out if there is a possible diagnostic or prognostic value for CD56.Patients and Methods: The study involved 55 patients with hematologic malignancies. The patients were diagnosed after complete blood count, bone marrow aspirate (BMA), bone marrow biopsy (BMB), and Immunophenotyping.Results: AML cases showed ectopic expression of CD56 (25.7%), T-ALL and MM cases showed (100%), cases of B-ALL showed (12.5%), and cases of CLL and Lymphoma were without ectopic expression of CD56.Conclusion: CD56 does not show an impact on the severity of disease but may be related to response to treatment, relapse rate, prolonged survival of tumor cells, and apoptosis of cells or survival of patients, which need further prospective studies.