Open AccessMinimal Residual Disease at First Achievement of Complete Remission Predicts Outcome in Adult Patients with Philadelphia Chromosome-Negative Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
Author(s) -
Mingming Zhang,
Haidong Fu,
Xiaoyu Lai,
Yamin Tan,
Weiyan Zheng,
Jimin Shi,
Yanmin Zhao,
Maofang Lin,
Jingsong He,
Zhen Cai,
Yi Luo,
He Huang
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0163599
Subject(s) - minimal residual disease , medicine , hematopoietic stem cell transplantation , chemotherapy , leukemia , oncology , complete remission , philadelphia chromosome , acute lymphocytic leukemia , gastroenterology , transplantation , lymphoblastic leukemia , chromosomal translocation , biology , biochemistry , gene
We evaluated the prognostic effect of minimal residual disease at first achievement of complete remission (MRD at CR1) in adult patients with Philadelphia chromosome-negative acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). A total of 97 patients received treatment in our center between 2007 and 2012 were retrospectively reviewed in this study. Patients were divided into two arms according to the post-remission therapy (chemotherapy alone or allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT)) they received. MRD was detected by four-color flow cytometry. We chose 0.02% and 0.2% as the cut-off points of MRD at CR1 for risk stratification using receiver operating characteristic analysis. The 3-year overall survival (OS) and leukemia free survival (LFS) rates for the whole cohort were 46.2% and 40.5%. MRD at CR1 had a significantly negative correlation with survival in both arms. Three-year OS rates in the chemotherapy arm were 70.0%, 25.2%, 0% (P = 0.003) for low, intermediate, and high levels of MRD at CR1, respectively. Three-year OS rates in the transplant arm were 81.8%, 64.3%, 27.3% (P = 0.005) for low, intermediate, and high levels of MRD at CR1, respectively. Multivariate analysis confirmed that higher level of MRD at CR1 was a significant adverse factor for OS and LFS. Compared with chemotherapy alone, allo-HSCT significantly improved LFS rates in patients with intermediate (P = 0.005) and high (P = 0.022) levels of MRD at CR1, but not patients with low level of MRD at CR1 (P = 0.851). These results suggested that MRD at CR1 could strongly predict the outcome of adult ALL. Patients with intermediate and high levels of MRD at CR1 would benefit from allo-HSCT.