Specificity helps with cancer outcome prediction, therapies
/Acute Erythroleukemia Genomic Subtypes Help Predict Outcomes, Suggest Therapies
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – A new genomic analysis of acute erythroid leukemia (AEL) has uncovered recurrent tumor gene mutation and expression profiles, including genomic features that appear to coincide with outcomes for patients affected by the rare, difficult-to-treat form of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
"These results mark a new era in understanding and treatment of AEL, an aggressive leukemia that has been plagued by diagnostic controversy and poor outcomes," senior author Charles Mullighan, a pathology researcher and co-leader of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's hematological malignancies program, said in a statement.
As they reported online today in Nature Genetics, Mullighan and colleagues performed whole-genome, exome, targeted, and transcriptome sequencing on samples from 159 pediatric or adult AEL patients treated at sites around the world, comparing the somatic mutations and gene expression patterns they found to those in samples from more than 1,900 individuals with non-AEL conditions — from other forms of AML to myelodysplastic syndrome.
