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. 2014:2014:123079.
doi: 10.1155/2014/123079. Epub 2014 Aug 17.

Peripheral blood WT1 expression predicts relapse in AML patients undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplantation

Michele Malagola  1 , Cristina Skert  1 , Giuseppina Ruggeri  2 , Alessandro Turra  1 , Rossella Ribolla  1 , Valeria Cancelli  1 , Federica Cattina  1 , Elisa Alghisi  1 , Simona Bernardi  1 , Simone Perucca  1 , Andrea Di Palma  1 , Erika Borlenghi  3 , Chiara Pagani  1 , Giuseppe Rossi  3 , Luigi Caimi  2 , Domenico Russo  1
Affiliations

Peripheral blood WT1 expression predicts relapse in AML patients undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplantation

Michele Malagola et al. Biomed Res Int. 2014.

Abstract

To evaluate if WT1 expression may predict relapse after allo-SCT, we analyzed WT1 levels on peripheral blood (PB) and bone marrow (BM) before and after allo-SCT in 24 AML patients with WT1 overexpression at diagnosis. Five copies of WT1/ABL × 10(4) from PB were identified as the threshold value that correlated with relapse after allo-SCT. The same correlation was not identified when WT1 expression was assessed from bone marrow (BM). Eight out of 11 (73%) patients with a pre-allo-SCT PB-WT1 ≥ 5 and 4/13 (31%) patients with a pre-allo-SCT PB-WT1 < 5 relapsed, respectively (P = 0.04). The incidence of relapse was higher in patients with PB-WT1 ≥ 5 measured after allo-SCT, at the 3rd (56% versus 38%; P = 0.43) and at the 6th month (71% versus 20%; P = 0.03). Patients with pretransplant PB-WT1 < 5 had significantly better 2-year OS and LFS than patients with a PB-WT1 ≥ 5 (81% versus 0% and 63% versus 20%) (P = 0.02). Our data suggest the usefulness of WT1 monitoring from PB to predict the relapse in allotransplanted AML patients and to modulate the intensity of conditioning and/or the posttransplant immunosuppression in an attempt to reduce the posttransplant relapse risk.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) OS of the 24 AML patients according to PB-WT1 level before allo-SCT. (b) LFS of the 24 AML patients according to PB-WT1 level before allo-SCT.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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