Patent ID: 7479371

Claim:
A method for diagnosing leukemia, pre-leukemia or aleukemic malignant blood diseases wherein stem cell growth factor (SCGF) in an in-vivo sample is quantified, wherein the method comprises: obtaining an in-vivo patient sample from a patient suspected of having leukemia, pre-leukemia or aleukemic malignant blood disease; contacting the patient sample with one or more anti-SCGF antibodies; detecting and/or quantifying SCGF present in the patient sample in an immunological assay; thereby obtaining a patient sample SCGF value; comparing the patient sample SCGF value to a SCGF cut-off value; wherein the SCGF cut-off value is set based on one or more individuals that do not have leukemia, pre-leukemia, or alenkemic malignant blood disease; and diagnosing leukemia, pre-leukemia or aleukemic malignant blood disease if the patient sample SCGF value is above the SCGF cut-off value; wherein the leukemia is acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), acute mycloid leukemia (AML), or chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), and the pre-leukemia is myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), and the aleukemic malignant blood disease is non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) or multiple mycloma (MM).