Telomere length shortening is associated with treatment-free remission in chronic myeloid leukemia patients. Issue 1 (December 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Caocci, Giovanni; Greco, Marianna; Delogu, Giuseppe; Secchi, Christian; Martino, Bruno; Labate, Claudia; Abruzzese, Elisabetta; Trawinska, Malgorzata; Galimberti, Sara; Orru, Federica; Fozza, Claudio; Passerini, Carlo; Galimi, Francesco; La Nasa, Giorgio
• Is Part Of: Journal of hematology & oncology. Volume 9:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 3
• Publication Date: 2016-12
• Subjects: Chronic myeloid leukemia -- Telomere -- Treatment-free remission -- Imatinib -- Telomerase; Hematology -- Periodicals; Oncology -- Periodicals; Blood -- Diseases -- Periodicals; 616.994
• DOI: 10.1186/s13045-016-0293-y
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1756-8722

Abstract

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.