Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Jun 30;117(26):6987-90.
doi: 10.1182/blood-2011-03-340273. Epub 2011 May 17.

FLT3/ITD AML and the law of unintended consequences

Mark Levis  1
Affiliations

FLT3/ITD AML and the law of unintended consequences

Mark Levis. Blood. .

Abstract

Acute myeloid leukemia with a FLT3 internal tandem duplication (FLT3/ITD) mutation is an aggressive hematologic malignancy with a generally poor prognosis. It can be successfully treated into remission with intensive chemotherapy, but it routinely relapses. At relapse, the blasts tend to have higher mutant allelic ratios and, in vitro, are more addicted to the aberrant signaling from the FLT3/ITD oncoprotein. They remain highly responsive to FLT3 ligand, the levels of which rise several-fold during the course of chemotherapy. The question now arises as to whether these high levels of FLT3 ligand are actually promoting relapse, and, if so, how we can use this information to adjust our therapeutic approach and improve the cure rate for acute myeloid leukemia with FLT3/ITD.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Meierhoff G, Dehmel U, Gruss HJ, et al. Expression of FLT3 receptor and FLT3-ligand in human leukemia-lymphoma cell lines. Leukemia. 1995;9(8):1368–1372. - PubMed
    1. Drexler HG. Expression of FLT3 receptor and response to FLT3 ligand by leukemic cells. Leukemia. 1996;10(4):588–599. - PubMed
    1. Carow CE, Levenstein M, Kaufmann SH, et al. Expression of the hematopoietic growth factor receptor FLT3 (STK-1/Flk2) in human leukemias. Blood. 1996;87(3):1089–1096. - PubMed
    1. Birg F, Courcoul M, Rosnet O, et al. Expression of the FMS/KIT-like gene FLT3 in human acute leukemias of the myeloid and lymphoid lineages. Blood. 1992;80(10):2584–2593. - PubMed
    1. Rosnet O, Buhring HJ, Marchetto S, et al. Human FLT3/FLK2 receptor tyrosine kinase is expressed at the surface of normal and malignant hematopoietic cells. Leukemia. 1996;10(2):238–248. - PubMed

Publication types