A Comparison of Leukocyte Alkaline Phosphatase Determinations in 200 Patients with Mongolism and in 200 Familial Controls

SINCE 1939, when Gomori1 first demonstrated alkaline phosphatase activity in the cells of the blood and bone marrow, interest has been centered on the significance of this enzyme in the cells and on the variations in its concentration in different clinical entities. The alkaline phosphatase activity of the polymorphonuclear leukocytes is diminished in chronic myelogenous leukemia.2 3 4 At the same time evidence has been accumulating that an abnormally small acrocentric chromosome (No. 21, Denver classification) is present in most cases of chronic myelogenous leukemia5; this has been called the Philadelphia chromosome, or more correctly Ph. Patients with mongolism have been . . .