Multilineage dysplasia does not influence prognosis in patients with CEBPA mutated AML supporting the WHO proposal to classify these patients as a unique entity

By WHO 2008, CEBPA-mutated AML became a provisional subentity, but it remains to be clarified how CEBPAmut AML with multilineage dysplasia (MLD; 50% dysplastic cells in 2-3 lineages) but no other MDS-related feature should be classified. We investigated 108 CEBPAmut AML (15.7-87.6 years) for the impact of MLD and genetic features. MLD-positive patients differed from MLD-negative only by lower mean WBC counts (p=0.004), but not by other blood values, biologic characteristics, cytogenetic risk profiles, or additional molecular markers (NPM1mut, FLT3-ITD/TKD, RUNX1, MLL-PTD, IDH1/2). Biallelic CEBPAmut differed from wild-type-cases by differential expression of 213 genes, but did not differ significantly between MLD-positive/-negative patients. Survival outcomes were improved for females and those <60 years, intermediate versus adverse karyotypes (p=0.021), and for biallelic versus monoallelic/homozygous CEBPAmut (p=0.060) in case of FLT3-ITD-negativity. In contrast, 2-year OS (MLD+: 56.5%; MLD-: 65.5%) and 2-year EFS (MLD+: 13.8 months; MLD-: 16.3 months) did not differ significantly between MLD-positive/-negative patients. By univariable Cox regression analysis, gender, age, WBC count and MRC-cytogenetic risk category only were prognostically relevant for OS, while MLD was irrelevant. Therefore, CEBPAmut AML patients should be characterized only according to mut-status, cytogenetic risk groups, or additional mutations, whereas dysplasia is not relevant for this subtype.

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Bacher U, Schnittger S, Macijewski K, Grossmann V, Kohlmann A, Alpermann T, Kowarsch A, Nadarajah N, Kern W, Haferlach C, Haferlach T