Positive expression of PAX7 indicates poor prognosis of pediatric and adolescent AML patients

ABSTRACT

Objective: Therapeutic advances based on risk stratification and implementation of excellent supportive care measures have significantly improved outcomes for childhood acute myeloid leukemia (AML) over the past 30 years. However, approximately half of all childhood AML cases relapse. Therefore, precise risk stratification is needed for predicting relapse potential.

Methods: RNA-seq data of TARGET-AML and corresponding clinical information of pediatric and adolescent AML cases were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Clinical information of 156 patients with gene expression data was extracted. The effects of PAX7 expression profiles on overall survival (OS) and event-free survival (EFS) were analyzed.

Results: Positive expression of PAX7 indicated shorter OS and EFS, especially in patients older than 14 years. Furthermore, positive PAX7 expression also predicted shorter OS and EFS in intermediate- and low-risk group patients, compared to patients with negative PAX7 expression. In addition, patients who have received allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) in the first complete remission had better outcome than those who did not receive HSCT.

Conclusions: Positive PAX7 expression in pediatric and adolescent AML patients indicates a poor outcome. Hence, the detection of PAX7 expression profiles is helpful for further stratification of intermediate- and low-risk groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Acute myeloid leukemia
• PAX7 expression profiles
• pediatric and Adolescent
• prognosis
• risk stratification

Author contributions

T Yan and Y Gong raised the concept and designed the study. T Yan and D Naren contributed to the analysis and interpretation of the data. Tu Yan wrote the draft of the paper. Y Gong revised the paper critically for intellectual content, and finally approved the version. All authors agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Foundation of the Science & Technology Department of Sichuan Province