Chronic lymphocytic leukemia and myeloproliferative neoplasms concurrently diagnosed: clinical and biological characteristics

Abstract

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) may occur concomitantly. However, little is known about the pathobiological characteristics and interaction between the neoplastic clones in these rare cases of coinciding malignancies. We retrospectively examined the clinical and biological characteristics of 13 patients with concomitant CLL and MPN – eight primary myelofibrosis (PMF), three essential thrombocytosis (ET), and two polycythemia vera (PV) – who presented to our institution between 1998 and 2014, and tested all patients for MPN-specific aberrations, such as JAK2, MPL and CALR mutations. Along with epidemiological and molecular characterization of this rare condition, we found that JAK2 mutation can be detected 9 years prior to PMF diagnosis, suggesting that PMF clinical phenotype may require several years to develop and CLL/MPN clinical co-occurrence might be sustained by common molecular events. Some features of these patients suggest that pathobiologies of these diseases might be intertwined.

Keywords:

• Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
• myeloproliferative neoplasms
• JAK2
• CALR
• MPL
• primary myelofibrosis

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a grant from the CLL Global Research Foundation. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is supported in part by the National Institutes of Health through a Cancer Center Support Grant (P30 CA16672).

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/10428194.2015.1092527.