Introduction: Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) from unrelated donors (UD) is a curative therapy for many hematologic malignancies. HLA matching plays a major role in determining HSCT ...outcome but the relative role of incompatibilities at the different HLA loci is still debated. In particular, over 80% of UD-HSCT are performed across HLA-DPB1 mismatches (mm): a number of previous studies have devised immunogenetic models to elucidate the impact of HLA-DPB1 mm on HSCT outcome, but a comparative analysis of these models in a recent and well-characterized cohort is lacking.
Methods: We selected 422 adult patients (pts) who received an 8/8 (HLA-A, B, -C and -DRB1) allele level-matched UD-HSCT from 2012 to 2015: of them, 382 (90%) had a mm at one or both HLA-DPB1 alleles. We classified functional HLA-DPB1 matching by four models, on the basis of: I) differential immunogenicity of alleles belonging to 3 groups of T-cell epitopes (TCE), as defined by functional studies (Zino, Blood, 2004) and refined by in silico prediction (Crivello, BBMT 2015); II) a similar model subdividing allelles in 4 TCE groups (TCE4, Crocchiolo, Blood 2009); III) differences in “delta functional distance” scores between the alleles of donor and pt, based on 12 polymorphic AA in HLA-DPB1 exon 2 (Crivello, Blood 2016); IV) mismatches in the rs9277534 single-nucleotide polymorphism in the HLA-DPB1 3′ UTR region, predicted on the basis of the DPB1 genotype (Schöne, Hum Immunol 2018), and previously shown to be associated to the expression levels of HLA-DPB1 molecules (HLAexp, Petersdorf, NEJM 2015).
Indication for HSCT was acute leukemia (55%), lymphoma and multiple myeloma (29%), myelodysplastic and myeloproliferative syndromes (16%). According to EBMT score definition, 45% of pts were in early, 26% in intermediate, and 29% in advanced disease status. Conditioning regimens were myeloablative (64%) or reduced intensity (36%). Peripheral blood was the preferred stem cell source (81%). Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) prophylaxis was based on anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) in 91% of pts, mostly associated with cyclosporine and methotrexate (81%). Median follow-up was 3.2 y.
Results: Among the four models adopted to classify functional HLA-DPB1 matching, the TCE4 provided the best results in predicting mm that were permissive (P) or non permissive (NP) for HSCT outcomes. By this model, P mismatched pairs (N=135) had a significantly superior 3-y overall survival (OS) and Graft-versus host disease and Relapse-Free Survival (GRFS) compared to NP pairs (N=247) (60±8% vs 49±7%, p .05; and 36±8% vs 29±5%, p .04). This was associated with a higher transplant-related mortality (TRM), 30±6% in NP mm and 21±6% in P mm, p .09 and a higher 3-y CI of extensive cGvHD in NP mm (12±4%) compared to P (4±2%), p .01 (Figure 1). No effect was found for relapse incidence. Cox multivariate analysis (adjusted for pt age, donor/host gender and CMV, disease status, Sorror score, conditioning intensity, stem cell source, ATG use, HLA matching on 5 loci, center effect), showed that a NP mm compared to P mm was associated with higher hazards for OS (HR 1.6, p .01), GRFS (HR 1.4, p .02), TRM (HR 1.9, p .01), cGvHD (HR 1.6, p .03) and extensive cGvHD (HR 3.6, p <.01). No interaction was found between HLA matching on 5 loci and HLA-DPB1 permissivity predicted by TCE4. Directionality of NP mm did not impact on clinical risk stratification.
Of the 382 transplants with HLA-DPB1 mismatches, 229 had unidirectional mismatches in GvH direction and thus could be classified by the HLAexp model. The predicted expression level of the mismatched allele in the patient was associated with 100-d CI of grade≥2 aGvHD: 32±10% in high expression (N=76) versus 16±6% in low expression (N=153) mismatched alleles, p <.01. This was also confirmed in adjusted Cox multivariate analysis for grade≥2 aGvHD (HR 2.2, p <.01). However, this did not have a significant impact on severe aGvHD, TRM and OS.
No significant associations with clinical outcomes were found for the “delta functional distance” or the TCE3 model, respectively.
Conclusions: Our study provides further proof that functional HLA-DPB1 matching is crucially associated to UD-HSCT outcome also in recent transplants, and suggest that, at least in the cohort under analysis, mainly composed of Italian pts transplanted using an ATG-based prophylaxis, the TCE4 model appears superior to other models in stratifying risk groups and predicting survival.
Patriarca:Medac: Other: Travel, accommodations, expenses; Jazz: Other: Travel, accommodations, expenses; Celgene: Other: Advisory Role; Travel, accommodations, expenses; Janssen: Other: Advisory role; MSD Italy: Other: Advisory Role. Rambaldi:Italfarmaco: Consultancy; Roche: Consultancy; Omeros: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Novartis: Consultancy; Pfizer: Consultancy; Amgen Inc.: Consultancy. Fleischhauer:GENDX: Research Funding. Vago:GENDX: Research Funding; Moderna TX: Research Funding.
Prenatal diagnosis of severe bone diseases is challenging and requires complete and precise analysis of fetal anomalies to guide genetic investigation and parental counselling.
We report a rare case ...of Antley-Bixler syndrome prenatally diagnosed at 26 weeks' gestation by ultrasound and computed tomography in a 28-year-old woman with a history of early termination of pregnancy for "malposition of the inferior limbs". The prenatal ultrasound scan showed severe femoral bowing and frontal bossing. Taking into account the high probability of a recurrent severe skeletal disorder, a computed tomography (CT) scan was proposed. CT findings revealed bilateral femora deformation, craniosynostosis, severe midface hypoplasia, and radiohumeral synostosis. These anomalies strongly suggested Antley-Bixler syndrome. Sequencing of the POR gene in the fetus and the parents revealed compound heterozygous mutations in exon 9 and intron 7, both inherited from each parent, and this finding allowed genetic counseling.
The first step in the proper prenatal diagnosis of fetal bone disorders is the precise analysis of ultrasonographic images. However, when a severe fetal inherited disorder is strongly suspected in late mid-trimester, CT may be discussed and usefully contribute to diagnosis and prognosis assessment.
* AR and AN contributed equally to the abstract
Background: When considering a high risk, but potentially curative procedure, such as an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), ...prognostic models may help decision making. We have previously developed the Acute Leukemia (AL)-EBMT score for prediction of mortality following allogeneic HSCT in AL patients (Shouval et al., JCO, 2015). The score is based on 10 variables including: disease status,Karnofsky performance status, recipient age, diagnosis, interval between diagnosis to HSCT, conditioning regimen, donor type, donor and recipient CMVserostatus combination, HSCT year, and center experience (HSCT/year). External validation of the score on an independent cohort of AL patients is of importance.
Methods: This was a retrospective validation study on an independent cohort of AL patients from the Italian national transplantation network (GITMO). Inclusion criteria included adult AL patients, receiving an allogeneic HSCTbetween 2000-2014. Competing risks analysis was used to calculate the 2 years non-relapse related mortality (NRM) cumulative incidence, using the Gray test to test differences between ADT score groups. Overall survival (OS), and leukemia free survival (LFS) at 2 years were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method; hazard ratios were computed between subgroups using Cox regression for OS and LFS and competing risk regression for NRM. Competing risk regression was used to compute NRM cumulative incidence rates, considering non-transplant mortality as the competing event. The predictive ability of the AL-EBMT score was assessed using time-dependent receiver-operator curves (AUC) analysis.
Results: A total of 1,848 patients from 61 Italian transplant centers were analyzed. The median age was 45.9 (IQR 35.2-55). Indications for HSCT were Acute Myeloid Leukemia (67.8%) and Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (32.2%). The majority of patients were in first complete remission (60.6%), and received myeloablative conditioning (81.3%). Median follow-up was 2 years (1.9-2.1, 95% CI). The AL-EBMT score was categorized according totertiles (low, intermediate, high) on the original ALWP-EBMT cohort. Increasing score intervals corresponded with decreasing probability for 2 year OS (95% CI), ranging from 75.52% (70.69-80.68) to 36.93% (32.81-41.56), and increasing probability of 2 years NRM ranging from 10.9% (7.97-14.93) to 27.39% (23.84-31.48) (Table 1, Figure 1). The highest scoring group was associated with a hazard ratio (95% CI) of 2.89 (2.01-4.16) for 2 year NRM and 3.66 (2,85-4.72) for death at 2 years (Table 2). The categorized score discrimination (AUC) for 2 year OS, LFS, and NRM was 66.42, 66.15, and 67, respectively.
Conclusion: This is the first study externally validating the AL-EBMT score. The score identified 3 distinctive risk groups and was predictive of survival related outcome. It can be used as a decision support tool when considering an allogeneic HSCT in acute leukemia patients.
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No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Introduction Patients with secondary acute myeloid leukemia (sAML) after myelodysplastic (MDS) or myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) treated with chemotherapy show poorer outcomes compared with de ...novo AML; consequently, these cases should be allocated to allogeneic stem cell transplant (alloSCT) whenever possible (Döhner H, Blood 2017). Some recent evidence suggested the potential of molecular characterization for implementing the current WHO definition (Arber DA, Blood 2016), since chromatin-splicing mutations have been reported to be highly specific for sAML (Lindsley RC, Blood 2015). However, this molecular signature has also been recognized in some clinically defined de novo AML cases (Papaemmanuil E, NEJM 2016). Based on this background, we assessed the clinical impact of chromatin-splicing mutational signature in clinically defined de novo AML patients enrolled into the prospective NILG 02/06 trial ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00495287.
Patients and Methods The trial (Bassan R, Blood Advances 2019) randomized 574 newly diagnosed AML patients to receive induction (standard vs high-dose) followed by consolidative chemotherapy and/or alloSCT. For the present analysis, only patients with de novo AML (n=313) and WHO-defined sAML after MDS or MPN (n=101) with a full genetic characterization have been considered. Studies performed at diagnosis included conventional karyotype (n=412) and molecular analysis (n=414) and/or targeted NGS (this latter performed on 197 patients with normal karyotype). Patients with WHO-sAML were defined by the presence of an antecedent history of MDS or MPN (n=21) and/or cytogenetic WHO criteria of AML with MDS-related changes (n=80). Chromatin-splicing mutational signature defined the molecular-sAML group and comprised ASXL1, STAG2, BCOR, KMT2A-PTD, EZH2, PHF6, SRSF2, SF3B1, U2AF1, ZRS2 and RUNX1, excluding patients with WHO recurrent abnormalities.
Results Chromatin-splicing mutations were scored in 55/313 (17.6%) de novo AML patients (hereafter named molecular-sAML). The most frequently reported were KMT2A-PTD (45.5%), RUNX1 (44.4%) and ASXL1 (22.2%), while other mutations in the signature accounted for 5-17.5% of cases. Compared to de novo AML without chromatin-splicing mutations, patients with molecular-sAML and WHO-sAML were older (P<0.0001) and presented with lower white blood cell counts (WBC) (P<0.0001). The 3 groups were balanced in regards to induction regimen (P=0.5) and proportion of patients allocated to a consolidative alloSCT (31% in de novo AML, 30% in WHO-sAML and 33% in molecular-sAML, P=0.8). Complete remission (CR) after 1 or 2 induction cycles was achieved in 93% of de novo AML, 85% of molecular-sAML and 58% of WHO-sAML. In terms of 5-years overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS), de novo AML patients did markedly better than both molecular and WHO-sAML patients (OS: 61%, P<0.0001; DFS: 54%, P<0.0009). Considering sAML patients, WHO-sAML had the worst OS when compared with molecular-sAML (18% vs 30%, P=0.02), but an overlapping DFS (22% vs 26%, P<0.3) (Figure 1). The negative impact of chromatin-splicing mutations was independently confirmed by multivariate analysis accounting for age, performance status, WBC and induction regimen HR 2.2 (CI 95% 1.48-3.25), P=0.0001. Among chromatin-splicing mutations, only RUNX1 and U2AF1 significantly affected OS HR 3.55 (CI 95% 1.28-9.87), P=0.01 and HR 6.87 (CI 95% 1.71-27.55), P=0.006. Finally, a consolidative alloSCT improved survival in all patients groups, most significantly in molecular and WHO-sAML (48% vs 24%, P=0.07 and 38% vs 8%, P=0.0001, respectively).
Conclusions Chromatin-splicing mutational signature identifies a distinct high-risk group within de novo AML patients, which shows clinical characteristics and outcomes closer to sAML than to de novo AML patients. These data highlight the need to detect this molecular signature at diagnosis and support a molecular definition of sAML.
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Ferrero:Novartis: Honoraria. Corradini:Celgene: Honoraria, Other: Travel Costs; Gilead: Honoraria, Other: Travel Costs; Jazz Pharmaceutics: Honoraria; KiowaKirin: Honoraria; Kite: Honoraria; Novartis: Honoraria, Other: Travel Costs; Daiichi Sankyo: Honoraria; AbbVie: Consultancy, Honoraria, Other: Travel Costs; Amgen: Honoraria; Janssen: Honoraria, Other: Travel Costs; Roche: Honoraria; Sanofi: Honoraria; Servier: Honoraria; Takeda: Honoraria, Other: Travel Costs; BMS: Other: Travel Costs. Bassan:Incyte: Honoraria; Amgen Inc.: Honoraria; Pfizer: Honoraria; Shire: Honoraria. Rambaldi:Roche: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Other: travel support, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Omeros: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Jazz: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau, travel support.
Introduction: HLA molecules play an important role for immunoreactivity in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). To elucidate the effect and the potential identification of ...“permissive” and “non permissive” I and II class HLA mismatching (mm) loci on the early and long term transplant outcome, we conducted a retrospective/prospective observational analysis on 1789 patients transplanted with unmanipulated haematopoietic stem cells from a volunteer unrelated donor (URD).
Methods Between January 2012 to December 2015, 1789 adult patients with a median age of 49 years (18-70) affected by haematological malignant diseases, performed an unrelated HSCT, coordinated by the Italian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (IBMDR). All patients have been typed by high resolution (HR) HLA typing for HLA-A/B/C/DRB1/DQB1 loci, at the start of the donor's search process. Patient and donor characteristics are shown in Table 1. As conditioning regimen and GVHD prophylaxis, 71% of patients received a myeloablative conditioning and 76% a combination of anti-Thymoglobuline, Cyclosporine and Metotrexate short course. Total Body Irradiation was part of conditioning regimen in 14% of cases and PBSC was used as stem cell source in 80% of transplants. Median follow for survivors was 38 months (1-76). Regarding to the allelic compatibility, 890 (50%) of donor/recipient (D/R) pairs were 10/10 HLA matched, 677 (38%) showed 1 mm for A, B, C, DRB1 or DQB1 in 249, 141, 173, 2 and 112 cases, respectively and 222 (12%) received HSCT from a 8/10 or less HLA matched donor.
Results: Overall 90% and 79% of patients achieved PMN and PLTS engraftment within 30 and 90 days, respectively. Probabilities of 3-y Overall Survival (3-yr OS), Progression Free Survival (3-yr PFS), and Graft Relapse Free Survival (3-yr GRFS) were 52%, 42%, and 30%, respectively. The 3-y CI of Transplant Related Mortality (TRM) was 26%, with a 100-days CI of acute GVHD ≥2 of 26%, whereas the 3-yr CI of chronic GVHD was 30%, of which 10% extensive. Cox multivariate analysis showed that, compared to 10/10 HLA-matched HSCT, 9/10 and ≤8/10 HLA-matched HSCT were associated with worse outcomes in terms of OS (HR 1.16, p=0.04 and HR 1.3, p=0.007, respectively), GRFS (HR 1.2, p=0.005 and HR 1.2, p=0.07, respectively), TRM (HR 1.3, p=0.007 and HR 1.6, p<0.0001, respectively), grade 3-4 aGVHD (HR 1.8, p=0.0001 and HR 1.8, p=0.01, respectively) and cGvHD (HR 1.3, p=0.005 and HR 1.1, p=0.35, respectively). Notably, no significant differences occurred through the comparison between ≤8/10 and 9/10 matching. Univariate comparisons are shown in Figure 1. Moreover, in order to identify permissive and non permissive allelic mismatching, we analyzed the donor/recipient pairs with a single HLA mm with a frequency > 5%: the presence of A02:01 in the patient's HLA, after adjustment for HLA matching at the other loci and other clinical variables known to affect HSCT outcome, was associated with significant higher risk of TRM (HR 1.9, p= 0.03) and worst OS (HR 1.7, p=0.04). Patient's age > 49 years (p<0.0001), advanced disease stage (p<0.0001), presence of 1 or more co- morbidity according to the Sorror Hematopoietic Cell Transplant-Comorbidity Index (p=0.01) were associated with a hazard risk of 1.4, 2, 1.2 for OS and 1.6, 1.75, 1.4 for TRM. Moreover, the Italian origin of recipient and donor resulted in reduced grade 2-4 acute (HR=0.6, p=0.001) and chronic GVHD (p=0.002, HR=0.4). Finally, the Transplant Program expertise (>10 HSCT/year) is associated with reduced TRM (HR 0.8, p=0.0001), HSCT from female donor to male recipient was associated with higher risk of extensive cGvHD (HR 1.4, p=0.03), and CMV negative/negative status versus other combinations had protective effect on development of grade 3-4 aGVHD (HR 0.56, p=0.04).
Conclusions: Our large cohort data of homogeneously treated 1789 URD transplants, show that 10/10 HLA matching remains a significantly favorable prognostic factor for OS, TRM, GRFS and acute/chronic GVHD, whereas there are no significant differences between 8/10 and 9/10 matching transplants. Moreover, the HLA A02:01 as single mm seems to play a “non permissive” role. Finally the Italian origin of recipient and donor is related to a reduced development of GVHD probably due to the matching of the extended MHC haplotypes in individuals of the same geographic origin.
Rambaldi:Amgen Inc.: Consultancy; Pfizer: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Omeros: Consultancy; Roche: Consultancy; Novartis: Consultancy; Italfarmaco: Consultancy. Vago:Moderna TX: Research Funding; GENDX: Research Funding. Patriarca:Janssen: Other: Advisory role; Jazz: Other: Travel, accommodations, expenses; Medac: Other: Travel, accommodations, expenses; Celgene: Other: Advisory Role; Travel, accommodations, expenses; MSD Italy: Other: Advisory Role.
Introduction
In acute myeloid leukemia (AML) older age is independently associated with poor outcome, due to patient- and disease-related factors. Different genetic profiles characterize AML patients ...and their frequency varies according to age. Their identification can improve early risk stratification to select the most appropriate therapy, including alternative, not chemotherapy based, treatment modalities, such as hypomethylating and targeted agents (Döhner H et al., Blood 2017). We analyzed the clinical outcome of AML patients aged ≥60 years who were enrolled in the randomized multicentric trial NILG 02/06, and were deeply genetically characterized (Clinical Trials.gov Identifier: NCT00495287).
Patients and Methods
Five hundred seventy-four newly diagnosed AML patients were enrolled into the study and 168 were aged ≥60 years; all patients were randomized to receive conventional induction chemotherapy with idarubicin, cytarabine and etoposide (ICE) or sequential high-dose cytarabine and idarubicin (sHD), followed by consolidation courses with high dose cytarabine (Bassan R et al., annual congress EHA. Jun 9, 2016, abstr S485). Genetic characterization at diagnosis was obtained by conventional cytogenetics and RT-PCR for 145 and 168 patients, respectively, while Next Generation Sequencing was performed for 51 patients with normal karyotype. Patients were re-classified as per the 2017 European Leukemia Net (ELN) guidelines (Döhner H et al., Blood 2017). A myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative (MDS/MPN) related genetic signature was defined according to cytogenetic WHO criteria and/or molecular abnormalities known to be associated with MDS/MPN (Bullinger L et al., J Clin Oncol 2017) and used for outcome correlation.
Results
The characteristics of patients are summarized in Table 1. According to the ELN risk stratification, patients were classified as favorable, intermediate or adverse risk (23%, 38% and 39% of patients, respectively). A genetic MDS/MPN signature was demonstrated in 42% of patients (63/149), which was a higher proportion compared to that of patients with a clinical diagnosis of an antecedent MDS/MPN (19% of patients, 32/168). No significant difference was observed between the induction regimens regarding the achievement of complete remission (CR) (71% for sHD and 61% for ICE, P=0.23) and early death rate (12% and 10.6%, P=0.96). After achieving CR, a median of 2 consolidation courses was administered (range 1-5) within both treatment arms. A limited proportion of patients with high-risk genetic or clinical features (14%) had the opportunity to undergo an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (alloHSCT), the majority of them (63%) receiving a reduced intensity conditioning. By intention to treat, 5-years overall survival (OS) and disease- free survival (DFS) on the whole study population were 29% and 32% respectively, without significant differences between the remission induction treatment (for sHD and ICE, OS: 29% and 28%, P=0.88; DFS: 34% and 29%, P=0.90). According to the ELN risk stratification, 5-years OS was 68%, 25% and 7% for favorable, intermediate and adverse groups (P<0.0001), while 3-years DFS was 73%, 28% and 13% (P<0.0001) (Figure 1A). According to the presence or absence of a MDS/MPN signature at diagnosis, 5-years OS was 11% vs 41% (P=0.0001) while 3-years DFS was 12% vs 49% (P<0.0001) (Figure 1B). AlloHSCT was associated with a significant benefit in terms of 5-years OS (57% vs 25%, P=0.0162) and DFS (53% vs 26%, P=0.0363) (Figure 1C). As expected, age had also an impact, with patients aged 60-64 years performing better than patients aged ≥65 years (5-years OS 38% vs 13%, P=0.003; 5-years DFS 43% vs 10%, P=0.002).
Conclusions
Older AML patients with favorable risk features according to ELN benefit from standard chemotherapy. The definition of an adverse genetic risk profile and particularly of a MDS/MPN signature is crucial to identify patients who have a very dismal outcome. These patients should be considered for alternative, innovative treatment options. In high-risk, ≥60 years old AML patients with a good performance status, alloHSCT significantly improves both OS and DFS and should always be considered as the most effective post consolidation treatment.
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Cattaneo:GILEAD: Other: Advisory Board. Cortelezzi:janssen: Consultancy; novartis: Consultancy; abbvie: Consultancy; roche: Consultancy. Rambaldi:Italfarmaco: Consultancy; Omeros: Consultancy; Roche: Consultancy; Amgen Inc.: Consultancy; Novartis: Consultancy; Pfizer: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy.
Today, allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) can be offered to patients up to age 70 to 72 years and represents one of the most effective curative treatments for many hematologic ...malignancies. The primary objective of the study was to collect data from the allo-SCTs performed in Italy between 2000 and 2017 in patients aged ≥60 years to evaluate the changes in safety and efficacy outcomes, as well as their distribution and characteristics over time. The Italian Group for Bone Marrow Transplantation, Hematopoietic Stem Cells and Cell Therapy (GITMO) AlloEld study (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT04469985) is a retrospective analysis of allo-SCTs performed at 30 Italian transplantation centers in older patients (age ≥60 years) between 2000 and 2017 (n = 1996). For the purpose of this analysis, patients were grouped into 3 time periods: time A, 2000 to 2005 (n = 256; 12%); time B, 2006 to 2011 (n = 584; 29%); and time C, 2012 to 2017 (n = 1156; 59%). After a median follow-up of 5.6 years, the 5-year nonrelapse mortality (NRM) remained stable (time A, 32.8%; time B, 36.2%; and time C, 35.0%; P = .5), overall survival improved (time A, 28.4%; time B, 31.8%; and time C, 37.3%; P = .012), and the cumulative incidence of relapse was reduced (time A, 45.3%; time B, 38.2%; time C, 30.0%; P < .0001). The 2-year incidence of extensive chronic graft-versus-host disease was reduced significantly (time A, 17.2%; time B, 15.8%; time C, 12.2%; P = .004). Considering times A and B together (2000 to 2011), the 2-year NRM was positively correlated with the Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Comorbidity Index (HCT-CI) score; NRM was 25.2% in patients with an HCT-CI score of 0, 33.9% in those with a score of 1 or 2, and 36.1% in those with a score of 3 (P < .001). However, after 2012, the HCT-CI score was not significantly predictive of NRM. This study shows that the transplantation procedure in elderly patients became more effective over time. Relapse incidence remains the major problem, and strategies to prevent it are currently under investigation (eg, post-transplantation maintenance). The selection of patients aged ≥60 could be improved by combining HCT-CI and frailty assessment to better predict NRM.
Background and Aim of the Study
For both childhood and adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) patients, clinical risk factors such as age, white cell count, response to steroids, time to complete ...remission, as well as biologic characteristics such as immunophenotype and cytogenetic at diagnosis are important but not sufficient in predicting clinical outcome. Aberrations of TP53 play a crucial role in the molecular pathogenesis of leukemias and lymphomas in which their presence is associated to disease progression and represents a strong predictor of poor clinical outcome. In childhood ALL, hereditary and acquired TP53 mutations are involved both in the pathogenesis and progression of the disease. In adult ALL, TP53 mutations are frequent in patients negative for recurrent fusion genes and correlate with poor response to induction therapy (Chiaretti S. et al, Haematologica 2013). The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of TP53 alterations, analyzed by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), on the outcome of a cohort of T (n= 57) and B (n= 114) precursor, Philadelphia (Ph) negative, adult ALL patients enrolled into the NILG-ALL 09/2000 clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00358072, Bassan R. et al, Blood 2009) in which molecular minimal residual disease was used to guide post-remissional therapy.
Patients and Study design
Among the 171 patients who were investigated for TP53 mutations, 16 proved also positive for t(4;11) and 3 for t(1;19). We analyzed DNA isolated from mononuclear cells obtained from bone marrow or peripheral blood samples containing at least 30% of blasts at diagnosis. The TP53 gene was sequenced using 454 ultra-deep sequencing (Roche Diagnostics) for alterations in exons 4 to 11, following the protocol developed in the IRON-II consortium. The sequencing data were analyzed by the Roche Diagnostics GS Run Browser and GS Amplicon Variant Analyzer software. The probabilities of survival were estimated using the Kaplan Meier method. The log-rank test was used to compare survival probabilities between subgroups of patients.
Results and Discussion
The data obtained by NGS allowed to identify 15 coding mutations detected in the DNA binding domain region (exons 5 to 8). These alterations were observed at diagnosis in 14 patients (8%), (11 B-precursor ALL and 3 T-ALL). In 12 cases these aberrations were single nucleotide changes, in 2 cases we found a duplication (one of 4 and the other of 8 nucleotides) and in one case there was an 11 base pair DNA insertion. Remarkably, all of these DNA alterations led to missense or frame-shift mutations that introduced a premature stop codon. Moreover, they were detected with a wide range of allele burden (from 5% to 97%) pointing out that TP53 mutations can be present at diagnosis in different proportions within the leukemic clones. All patients carrying a TP53 alteration reached complete remission after induction therapy but 13 out of 14 suffered an early relapse. Frequency of relapses was significantly higher in mutated than in wild-type cases (p=0.019). Relapse DNA samples were available in 3 patients and in all of them we detected the same TP53 mutation found at diagnosis, indicating the presence of a stable mutated clone. The univariate analysis enlightens a clear relationship between TP53 mutation with an increasing age (p= 0.0003) but no correlation with other clinical features such as gender, hemoglobin, white blood count, platelets, percentage of blasts and cytogenetics at diagnosis. Moreover, patients with mutated TP53 showed a Disease Free Survival (DFS) and Overall Survival (OS) dramatically shorter than wild-type patients. The 2 years DFS was 43% in the TP53 non-mutated subjects compared to 7% in the mutated (p=0.0007). Similarly, the 2 years OS was of 50% in wild-type patients and of 7% in mutated patients (p=0.0011) (Figure 1).
Conclusions
In adult ALL, response to induction chemotherapy is not different in patients with a wild-type or a TP53 mutated gene, but in these latter cases the leukemia relapse rate is dramatically higher. The frequency of these mutations observed at diagnosis and the poor clinical outcome indicate the need of their identification during the diagnostic work up of adult ALL to guide treatment strategies. The use of a highly sensitive deep sequencing approach is crucial to identify also minor leukemic clones carrying TP53 mutations that may lead to the rapid emergence of a treatment resistant disease.
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Kohlmann:AstraZeneca: Employment.
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Introduction. The application of Pediatric-Type Therapy (PTT) programs to adults with ALL can improve outcome significantly despite higher age-related toxicity. Recent series reported survival ...rates ≥ 50%, but only few combined PTT with Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) study for risk-oriented Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (HCT) and/or explored the value of specific PTT element such as higher dose, lineage-targeted MTX up to 5 g/m2.
Methods. To improve over prior data, NILG protocol 10/07 (Clinical.Trials.gov NCT-00795756) for unselected adult patients aged 18-65 years combined PTT together with MRD study for risk/MRD-based HCT. The 8-course program consisted of a 5-drug complete remission (CR) induction (cycle no. 1; imatinib added if Ph+) followed by 3 modified BFM blocks (no. 2, 4 and 6), 3 lineage-targeted MTX blocks (no. 3, 5 and 7; MTX 5 g/m2 for T-ALL and 2.5 g/m2 for B-ALL 1.5 g/m2 if age > 55 years or Ph+; no. 3 and 7 with high-dose Ara-C 2 g/m2 x4, no. 5 with L-Asp 10,000 IU/m2 x2) and reinduction (no. 8). CNS prophylaxis was with triple intrathecals or liposomal cytarabine (Haematologica 2015;100:786). MRD was studied molecularly with sensitive probe(s) (sensitivity 10-4 or greater) on marrow samples obtained at end of induction (week 4, w4) and after cycles 3 (w10), 5 (w16), 7 (w22) i.e. after 1st, 2nd and 3rd lineage-targeted MTX block. Patients were risk-stratified at diagnosis and after MRD analysis for the purpose of allocation to HCT or conventional maintenance. The HCT allocation cohort consisted of predefined very high-risk patients (vHR: WBC >100, highly adverse cytogenetics, pre-T/mature T-ALL) regardless of MRD, of HR patients without MRD study (HR: late CR; B-ALL with WBC >30 or pro-B phenotype), and of HR or standard-risk (SR) patients with MRD ≥ 10-4 at w10/16 or positive at w22. Conversely, the maintenance allocation cohort consisted of SR and HR patients with MRD < 10-4 at w10/16 and negative at w22 and of SR patients without MRD study. A family related/unrelated donor search was activated at diagnosis in order to proceed to HCT soon after cycle no. 3 when needed.
Results. 205 patients were enrolled, with a median age of 41 years (range 17-67 years, 11% > 60 years). 55% were male, 42 had Ph+ ALL, 119 Ph- B-ALL and 44 T-ALL. Of 163 patients with Ph- ALL, 45% were SR, 13% HR and 42% vHR. CR rate was 98% in Ph+ ALL and T-ALL, and 83% in Ph- B-ALL (88% vs 58% in patients ≤ vs > 60 years, P .0013). The MRD study was successful in 109/142 CR patients with Ph- ALL (77%), contributing to the final risk classification in 63 patients, of whom 41 were MRD responsive (65%) and 22 MRD resistant (35%). Altogether, 55 CR patients constituted the maintenance allocation group (39%) and 87 the HCT allocation group (61%), which included mainly vHR patients (n=61, 43%) selected for HCT independently of MRD study results. According to intention-to-treat, median OS is not reached (53% at 5 years, figure) and median DFS is 4.8 years (48% at 5 years). In Ph- ALL, 5-year OS/DFS are 74%/61% in T-ALL (medians not reached) and 48% each in B-ALL (medians 3.9 and 4.7 years). Median OS is not reached in both HCT and maintenance allocation groups (58% and 73% at 5 years, respectively, P .078), with a median DFS of 4.7 years (48% at 5 years) versus not reached (59% at 5 years) (P .19). Treatment adherence was good with some exceptions in maintenance allocation group (6 HCT, 11%) and a transplant realization of 68% (53 allogeneic; 6 autologous) in HCT allocation group. With HCT, 5-year incidence of nonrelapse mortality was 17%. The MRD analysis proved that DFS of patients achieving an MRD response <10-4 at w4 (n=46/90, 51%) or w10 (n=76/107, 71%) was significantly improved compared to those with MRD ≥ 10-4, with median not reached and 5-year rate 67% versus 4.5 years and 41% (w4 MRD; P .041), and 7.2 years and 64% versus 1 year and 23% (w10 MRD; P .0001).
Conclusion. The current PTT and MRD-based risk-oriented strategy was applicable to adults with ALL in a wide age range, with some limitations in patients > 60 years. 5-year OS and DFS of 55% and 52% respectively in Ph- patients aged up to 65 years represent an improvement over prior NILG study (5-year OS and DFS of 36% and 35% respectively). MRD was essential in orientating the HCT choice in SR and HR patients and retained a major prognostic role in all patients. Optimizing the early MRD response with new immunotherapeutics and clarifying the role of HCT in MRD responsive vHR patients are some relevant topics of future research.
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Ciceri:MolMed SpA: Consultancy. Vitolo:Janssen: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Takeda: Honoraria; Gilead: Honoraria; Celgene: Honoraria; Roche: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau. Gallamini:Millenium Takeda: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees.
Here we evaluated whether sequential high-dose chemotherapy (sHD) increased the early complete remission (CR) rate in acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) compared with standard-intensity ...idarubicin-cytarabine-etoposide (ICE) chemotherapy. This study enrolled 574 patients (age, 16-73 years; median, 52 years) who were randomly assigned to ICE (n = 286 evaluable) or sHD (2 weekly 3-day blocks with cytarabine 2 g/m2 twice a day for 2 days plus idarubicin; n = 286 evaluable). Responsive patients were risk-stratified for a second randomization. Standard-risk patients received autograft or repetitive blood stem cell-supported high-dose courses. High-risk patients (and standard-risk patients not mobilizing stem cells) underwent allotransplantation. CR rates after 2 induction courses were comparable between ICE (80.8%) and sHD (83.6%; P = .38). sHD yielded a higher single-induction CR rate (69.2% vs 81.5%; P = .0007) with lower resistance risk (P < .0001), comparable mortality (P = .39), and improved 5-year overall survival (39% vs 49%; P = .045) and relapse-free survival (36% vs 48%; P = .028), despite greater hematotoxicity delaying or reducing consolidation blocks. sHD improved the early CR rate in high-risk AML (odds ratio, 0.48; 95% confidence interval CI, 0.31-0.74; P = .0008) and in patients aged 60 years and less with de novo AML (odds ratio, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.27-0.78; P = .003), and also improved overall/relapse-free survival in the latter group (hazard ratio, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.52-0.94; P = .01), in standard-risk AML, and postallograft (hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.39-0.96; P = .03). sHD was feasible, effectively achieved rapid CR, and improved outcomes in AML subsets. This study is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT00495287.
•High-dose chemotherapy increased early remission and overall and relapse-free survival compared with conventional-dose chemotherapy.•Allograft performance in high-risk patients and some standard-risk patients significantly improved survival.
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