The significance of handmirror cells in acute myelocytic leukaemia type M1 and M2 after weak cytostatic treatment.

The handmirror shape is a cell configuration assumed by mononuclear leucocytes and leucocyte precursors during locomotion. A fraction of fixed tumour cells in bone-marrow smears from patients with acute leukaemia have this handmirror shape. The incidence of handmirror cells has been reported to correlate positively with length of patient survival in some previous studies, but not in others.