Influence of FLT3-ITD Mutation and Length on the Treatment Response and Prognosis in Cytogenetically Normal AML Patients

BACKGROUND: Mutations of internal tandem duplication in FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3-ITD) contributed to poor prognosis in cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia (CN-AML). FLT3 tyrosine kinase inhibitor sorafenib in combination with chemotherapy was applied to treat FLT3-ITD AML patients with limited efficacy. Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) was considered as a potent therapeutic regimen in FLT3-ITD patients, but additional sorafenib maintenance was indispensable to support their long-term survival after allo-HSCT. Studies showed that increasing ITD size may be accompanied with decreasing OS and RFS in AML patients, but it remained controversial about the prognostic implication of ITD mutant lengths, the prognostic influence was important to evaluate in determining the therapeutic strategy for AML patients with different ITD lengths. METHODS: Total 185 CN-AML patients with and without FLT3-ITD mutations were enrolled in this study. We retrospectively studied the clinical characteristic, treatment response, survival and relapse risk after chemotherapy or allo-HSCT plus sorafenib in these patients. Distribution of ITD lengths detected in AML patients suggested two groups including long (≥70bp) and short ITD length (