Contradictory observations have been reported regard­ing the expression of BCR-ABL transcripts in patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET). To further address this issue we investigated the presence of BCR-ABL tran­scripts in 56 consecutive patients with ET. Detection of BCR-ABL transcripts coding for the p210 protein was performed by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reac­tion (RT-PCR) on total RNA extracted from bone marrow and peripheral blood samples. BCR-ABL transcripts were detected in only two patients (3.6%), who did not differ in any clinical or laboratory feature from the BCR-ABL-negative patients. Our finding that BCR-ABL transcripts are present in only a minority of patients with ET argues against a significant involvement of the BCR-ABL gene in the pathogenesis of ET.

Key words: BCR-ABL; Essential thrombocythemia (ET); oncogenes.