Mutation status and burden can improve prognostic prediction of patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes

Cancer Sci. 2020 Feb;111(2):580-591. doi: 10.1111/cas.14270. Epub 2019 Dec 24.

Abstract

Patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (LR-MDS) as defined by the International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS) have more favorable prognosis in general, but significant inter-individual heterogeneity exists. In this study, we examined the molecular profile of 15 MDS-relevant genes in 159 patients with LR-MDS using next-generation sequencing. In univariate COX regression, shorter overall survival (OS) was associated with mutation status of ASXL1 (P = .001), RUNX1 (P = .031), EZH2 (P = .049), TP53 (P = .016), SRSF2 (P = .046), JAK2 (P = .040), and IDH2 (P = .035). We also found significantly shorter OS in patients with an adjusted TET2 variant allele frequency (VAF) ≥18% versus those with either an adjusted TET2 VAF <18% or without TET2 mutations (median: 20.4 vs 47.8 months; P = .020; HR = 2.183, 95%CI: 1.129-4.224). After adjustment for IPSS, shorter OS was associated with mutation status of ASXL1 (P < .001; HR = 4.306, 95% CI: 2.144-8.650), TP53 (P = .004; HR = 4.863, 95% CI: 1.662-14.230) and JAK2 (P = .002; HR = 5.466, 95%CI: 1.848-16.169), as well as adjusted TET2 VAF ≥18% (P = .008; HR = 2.492, 95% CI: 1.273-4.876). Also, OS was increasingly shorter as the number of mutational factors increased (P < .001). A novel prognostic scoring system incorporating the presence/absence of the four independent mutational factors into the IPSS further stratified LR-MDS patients into three prognostically different groups (P < .001). The newly developed scoring system redefined 10.1% (16/159) of patients as a higher-risk group, who could not be predicted by the currently prognostic models. In conclusion, integration of the IPSS with mutation status/burden of certain MDS-relevant genes may improve the prognostication of patients with LR-MDS and could help identify those with worse-than-expected prognosis for more aggressive treatment.

Keywords: lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes; mutation burden; mutation status; prognosis; variant allele frequency.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Female
  • Gene Frequency
  • Gene Regulatory Networks*
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing / methods*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Mutation*
  • Myelodysplastic Syndromes / genetics*
  • Prognosis
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA / methods
  • Survival Analysis
  • Young Adult