Analysis of prognosis of acute myeloid leukemia patients based on genetic mutations / 中华医学遗传学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To correlate the clinical features of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with mutations of FLT3-ITD, NPM1, CEBPA, c-KIT, DNMT3A and ND4 genes as well as chromosomal aberrations.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Somatic mutations of aforementioned genes in 412 newly diagnosed AML patients were detected with PCR and direct sequencing. All patients were also subjected to R-banding chromosomal analysis. The results were correlated with the clinical features and prognosis of the patients.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The mutation rates of FLT3-ITD, NPM1, CEBPA, c-KIT, DNMT3A and ND4 were 9.0% (26/289), 19.1% (50/262), 18.9% (34/180), 3.4% (7/208), 6.6% (9/137) and 6.9% (4/58), respectively. Patients with poor prognosis based on genetic mutations had lower blood platelet count than those with intermediate and good prognosis (P=0.001 and P=0.001, respectively). None of the three groups attained median overall survival (OS) (P> 0.05). The complete remission (CR) was similar among the three groups (P> 0.05). For patients with different prognosis based on cytogenetic findings, white blood cell count in those with intermediate prognosis was higher than those with good and poor prognosis (P< 0.001 and P=0.004, respectively), while the blood platelet count of the intermediate group was higher than that of the group with good prognosis (P=0.018). No significant difference was found among the three groups in terms of hemoglobin level (P> 0.05). The group with poor prognosis has attained shorter OS compared with those with good and intermediate prognosis (P< 0.001 and P=0.003, respectively). However, the CR rate of the group with good prognosis was higher than that of the intermediate group (P=0.001). For the group with intermediate prognosis, presence of genetic mutations did not correlate with the clinic characteristics such as white blood cell count, blood platelet count, hemoglobin level, OS and CR rate (P> 0.05 for all comparisons).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Genetic mutations combined with cytogenetic analysis can facilitate the prognosis and personalized treatment for patients with AML.</p>

Molecular and cellular bases of chronic myeloid leukemia

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a myeloproliferative disease characterized by the overproduction of granulocytes, which leads to high white blood cell counts and splenomegaly in patients. Based on clinical symptoms and laboratory findings, CML is classified into three clinical phases, often starting with a chronic phase, progressing to an accelerated phase and ultimately ending in a terminal phase called blast crisis. Blast crisis phase of CML is clinically similar to an acute leukemia; in particular, B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) is a severe form of acute leukemia in blast crisis, and there is no effective therapy for it yet. CML is induced by the BCR-ABL oncogene, whose gene product is a BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase. Currently, inhibition of BCR-ABL kinase activity by its kinase inhibitor such as imatinib mesylate (Gleevec) is a major therapeutic strategy for CML. However, the inability of BCR-ABL kinase inhibitors to completely kill leukemia stem cells (LSCs) indicates that these kinase inhibitors are unlikely to cure CML. In addition, drug resistance due to the development of BCRABL mutations occurs before and during treatment of CML with kinase inhibitors. A critical issue to resolve this problem is to fully understand the biology of LSCs, and to identify key genes that play significant roles in survival and self-renewal of LSCs. In this review, we will focus on LSCs in CML by summarizing and discussing available experimental results, including the original studies from our own laboratory.