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. 2016 Jul 29;9(1):63.
doi: 10.1186/s13045-016-0293-y.

Telomere length shortening is associated with treatment-free remission in chronic myeloid leukemia patients

Giovanni Caocci  1 , Marianna Greco  2 , Giuseppe Delogu  3 , Christian Secchi  3   4 , Bruno Martino  5 , Claudia Labate  5 , Elisabetta Abruzzese  6 , Malgorzata Monika Trawinska  6 , Sara Galimberti  7 , Federica Orru  2 , Claudio Fozza  8 , Carlo Gambacorti Passerini  9 , Francesco Galimi  3   4 , Giorgio La Nasa  2
Affiliations

Telomere length shortening is associated with treatment-free remission in chronic myeloid leukemia patients

Giovanni Caocci et al. J Hematol Oncol. .

Abstract

We studied telomere length in 32 CML patients who discontinued imatinib after achieving complete molecular remission and 32 age-sex-matched controls. The relative telomere length (RTL) was determined by q-PCR as the telomere to single copy gene (36B4) ratio normalized to a reference sample (K-562 DNA). Age-corrected RTL (acRTL) was also obtained. The 36-month probability of treatment-free remission (TFR) was 59.4 %. TFR patients showed shorter acRTL compared to relapsed (mean ± SD = 0.01 ± 0.14 vs 0.20 ± 0.21; p = 0.01). TFR was significantly higher in CML patients with acRTL ≤0.09 (78.9 vs 30.8 %, p = 0.002). CML stem cells harboring longer telomeres possibly maintain a proliferative potential after treatment discontinuation.

Keywords: Chronic myeloid leukemia; Imatinib; Telomerase; Telomere; Treatment-free remission.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Treatment-free remission (TFR) according to age-corrected relative telomere length (acRTL) ≥0.09 in 32 CML patients
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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