DNA PROBES PREDICT CLL
PROGRESSION ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ULM,
Germany--Analysis of genomic aberrations in chronic lymphocytic leukemia
patients in the early stages of their disease may help predict
progression.
With 325 consecutive B-cell CLL patients, a
German team found abnormalities in 268 (82%). The researchers used a
comprehensive set of DNA probes to evaluate aberrations by interphase
cytogenetics, coming up with about twice the detection rate of conventional
chromosome-banding studies.
After a median follow-up of
70 months, 112 of the 325 patients had died, and the median survival of the
entire group was 108 months, Dr. Hartmut Dohner of the University of Ulm and
colleagues reported in the Dec. 28 New England Journal of Medicine. The
median age at diagnosis was 62.
The poorest survival from
the date of diagnosis was for the 23 patients (7%) with a 17p deletion, a
median of 32 months. They had a median treatment-free interval of only nine
months. A 17p deletion affects the p53 tumor-suppressor
gene.
For the 56 patients (17%) with an 11q deletion, the
median survival from diagnosis was 79 months. It was 114 months for the 47
patients (14%) with a 12q trisomy, and 111 months for the 57 (18%) with a
normal karyotype. For the 117 patients (36%) with a 13q deletion as the sole
abnormality, median survival was 133 months. The patients with a 13q
deletion had the longest treatment-free interval, a median of 92
months.
The 12q trisomy aberration, the most common
abnormality in conventional studies, was only the third most common with the
interphase cytogenetics approach.
