Significance of CASP8AP2 and H2AFZ expression in survival and risk of relapse in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Abstract

Novel biomarkers for risk refinement and stratification in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are needed to optimize treatment results. We studied the expression of CASP8AP2 and H2AFZ associated with relapse and survival in bone marrow samples from newly diagnosed children with ALL. We found: (a) an increased risk for early relapse in those patients with low expression of CASP8AP2 (odds ratio [OR] 3.93, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.40–11.02, p < 0.05) confirming its usefulness as a predictive risk marker, although H2AFZ did not present the same effect; (b) patients with low expressions of CASP8AP2 and H2AFZ had inferior survival rates (p < 0.001); (c) the predictive values regarding low expressions of H2AFZ and CASP8AP2 and high white blood cell count suggest that these features could help to identify more accurately patients at greater risk of relapse.

Keywords::

• Acute lymphoblastic leukemia
• childhood
• CASP8AP2 expression
• H2AFZ expression
• risk of relapse

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the nurses of the Área de Quimioterapia Ambulatoria (AQUA) at the Instituto Nacional de Pediatría, for their assistance in sample collection.

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at www.informahealthcare.com/lal.

Financial support was provided by CONACyT FONSEC SSA/IMSS/ISSSTE/44402 (P.P.-V.).

This article constitutes a partial fulfillment of the Graduate Program in Biological Sciences of the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM). Rocío Juárez- Velázquez acknowledges the scholarship and financial support provided by the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT) PhD grant 165427, and UNAM.