Serum levels of p55 and p75 soluble TNF receptors in adult acute leukaemia at diagnosis: correlation with clinical and biological features and outcome

The tumour necrosis factor (TNF)/TNF‐receptor (TNFR) complex plays a role in the growth of leukaemic cells. We retrospectively investigated the relationship between pre‐treatment serum concentration of soluble TNFR (p55‐ and p75‐sTNFRs) and outcome in adult acute myeloid (AML 82 cases) and lymphoid (ALL 44 cases) leukaemia. Both sTNFRs were significantly higher in AML (p55‐sTNFR 4.53 ± 3.7, median 3.75; p75‐sTNFR 6.51 ± 5.25 ng/ml, median 4.72) and ALL sera (3.31 ± 1.5, median 2.95; 5.30 ± 2.3 ng/ml, median 4.56, respectively) than in controls (1.89 ± 0.5, median 1.98; 2.22 ± 0.8 ng/ml, median 2.37) (P 3.75 ng/ml) were associated with shorter disease‐free survival (DFS) (P = 0.006) and overall survival (OS) (P = 0.0004). At multivariate analysis p55‐sTNFR was the most significant predictor of DFS (P = 0.006) and OS (P