A new procedure can help doctors to diagnose a rare kind of leukemia just in hours, instead of weeks, researchers say.

Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) usually occurs in children and leukemia symptoms include fevers, poor growth, and infections.

Diagnosis of JMML, in early stage is utmost important, since the only treatment is a bone marrow transplant. Current diagnosis of JMML involves monitoring the response of JMML cells to a growth-stimulating factor called GM-CSF, which takes two to three weeks for cells growth in the laboratory.

Now researchers had discovered a new technique that based on flow cytometry.

In flow cytometry, fluorescently marked antibodies are used for cells classification, depends on proteins on their outer surface. The new method proceeds by injecting antibodies inside the cell to bind to target proteins.

To diagnose leukemia, an antibody that binds only to the activated form of a protein called STAT5 is used in cell sample of twelve JMML patients. Eleven out of twelve JMML cell samples show high levels of STAT5 against low doses of GM-CSF.

“I was surprised how much more we can learn about the inner nature of these cells by ‘interrogating’ them with different conditions,” senior co-author Garry Nolan said, “Time and again, we are finding this to be a powerful amplifier of the fate of a diseased cell and a good way to understand why it responds to certain treatments and not others.”

Because the new technique can track disease progress, the researchers are trying to monitor the effectiveness of potential drug treatments for JMML and other disorders through it.

“Identifying populations of cells by their responses to specific stimuli will facilitate our ability to assess the efficacy of specific agents in relevant subsets with increased precision,” researchers said in a release.

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