Publication Date:
2015-12-03
Description:
Introduction The introduction of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) has revolutionized the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). In addition to blocking their main target kinase, the BCR-ABL oncoprotein, several studies have reported that TKIs could also have secondary effects on the immune system and lymphocyte behavior. The aim of this study was to assess the bone marrow (BM) lymphocyte status at diagnosis and during different first-line TKI therapies and correlate it with treatment responses. Methods Altogether 105 first-line TKI treated patients were included in the study (imatinib n=71, dasatinib n=25 and nilotinib n=9) and samples from 14 healthy bone marrow donors served as controls. BM aspirate samples were taken from patients at the diagnosis and at 3, 6, 12 and 18 months after the TKI therapy start, and MGG-stained BM aspirate slides were examined for cellularity and individual cellular proportions. Treatment responses were evaluated with standard karyotyping and real-time quantitative PCR. Patients were divided in different groups according to ELN criteria based on their therapy response at 12 months. In addition, multi-color flow cytometry was done from both BM and peripheral blood (PB) samples using 5 different antibody panels including markers for T, B, NK and regulatory T cells. Results We found an early (3 months) expansion of BM lymphocytes during all different TKI therapies (imatinib median lymphocyte count 20%; dasatinib 21%; nilotinib 22%; healthy controls 12%, p
Print ISSN:
0006-4971
Electronic ISSN:
1528-0020
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
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