An early thymic precursor phenotype predicts outcome exclusively in HOXA-overexpressing adult T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia: a Group for Research in Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia study
Jonathan Bond,
Tony Marchand,
Aurore Touzart,
Agata Cieslak,
Amélie Trinquand,
Laurent Sutton,
Isabelle Radford-Weiss,
Ludovic Lhermitte,
Salvatore Spicuglia,
Hervé Dombret,
Elizabeth Macintyre,
Norbert Ifrah,
Jean-François Hamel,
Vahid Asnafi
Affiliations
Jonathan Bond
Université Paris Descartes Sorbonne Cité, Institut Necker-Enfants Malades (INEM), Institut National de Recherche Médicale (INSERM) U1151, and Laboratory of Onco-Hematology, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Hôpital Necker Enfants-Malades, Paris
Tony Marchand
Department of Hematology, University Hospital and INSERM UMR 917, Rennes 1 University, Rennes
Aurore Touzart
Université Paris Descartes Sorbonne Cité, Institut Necker-Enfants Malades (INEM), Institut National de Recherche Médicale (INSERM) U1151, and Laboratory of Onco-Hematology, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Hôpital Necker Enfants-Malades, Paris
Agata Cieslak
Université Paris Descartes Sorbonne Cité, Institut Necker-Enfants Malades (INEM), Institut National de Recherche Médicale (INSERM) U1151, and Laboratory of Onco-Hematology, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Hôpital Necker Enfants-Malades, Paris
Amélie Trinquand
Université Paris Descartes Sorbonne Cité, Institut Necker-Enfants Malades (INEM), Institut National de Recherche Médicale (INSERM) U1151, and Laboratory of Onco-Hematology, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Hôpital Necker Enfants-Malades, Paris
Laurent Sutton
Department of Hematology, Centre Hospitalier Argenteuil
Isabelle Radford-Weiss
Université Paris 5 Descartes, Department of Cytogenetics, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades, Paris
Ludovic Lhermitte
Université Paris Descartes Sorbonne Cité, Institut Necker-Enfants Malades (INEM), Institut National de Recherche Médicale (INSERM) U1151, and Laboratory of Onco-Hematology, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Hôpital Necker Enfants-Malades, Paris
Salvatore Spicuglia
Technological Advances for Genomics and Clinics (TAGC), INSERM U1090, Aix-Marseille University UMR-S 1090, Marseille
Hervé Dombret
Université Paris Diderot, Institut Universitaire d’Hématologie, EA-3518, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, University Hospital Saint-Louis, Paris
Elizabeth Macintyre
Université Paris Descartes Sorbonne Cité, Institut Necker-Enfants Malades (INEM), Institut National de Recherche Médicale (INSERM) U1151, and Laboratory of Onco-Hematology, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Hôpital Necker Enfants-Malades, Paris
Norbert Ifrah
PRES LUNAM, CHU Angers Service des Maladies du Sang et INSERM U 892, Angers, France
Jean-François Hamel
PRES LUNAM, CHU Angers Service des Maladies du Sang et INSERM U 892, Angers, France
Vahid Asnafi
Université Paris Descartes Sorbonne Cité, Institut Necker-Enfants Malades (INEM), Institut National de Recherche Médicale (INSERM) U1151, and Laboratory of Onco-Hematology, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Hôpital Necker Enfants-Malades, Paris
Gene expression studies have consistently identified a HOXA-overexpressing cluster of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias, but it is unclear whether these constitute a homogeneous clinical entity, and the biological consequences of HOXA overexpression have not been systematically examined. We characterized the biology and outcome of 55 HOXA-positive cases among 209 patients with adult T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia uniformly treated during the Group for Research on Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (GRAALL)-2003 and -2005 studies. HOXA-positive patients had markedly higher rates of an early thymic precursor-like immunophenotype (40.8% versus 14.5%, P=0.0004), chemoresistance (59.3% versus 40.8%, P=0.026) and positivity for minimal residual disease (48.5% versus 23.5%, P=0.01) than the HOXA-negative group. These differences were due to particularly high frequencies of chemoresistant early thymic precursor-like acute lymphoblastic leukemia in HOXA-positive cases harboring fusion oncoproteins that transactivate HOXA. Strikingly, the presence of an early thymic precursor-like immunophenotype was associated with marked outcome differences within the HOXA-positive group (5-year overall survival 31.2% in HOXA-positive early thymic precursor versus 66.7% in HOXA-positive non-early thymic precursor, P=0.03), but not in HOXA-negative cases (5-year overall survival 74.2% in HOXA-negative early thymic precursor versus 57.2% in HOXA-negative non-early thymic precursor, P=0.44). Multivariate analysis further revealed that HOXA positivity independently affected event-free survival (P=0.053) and relapse risk (P=0.039) of chemoresistant T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. These results show that the underlying mechanism of HOXA deregulation dictates the clinico-biological phenotype, and that the negative prognosis of early thymic precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia is exclusive to HOXA-positive patients, suggesting that early treatment intensification is currently suboptimal for therapeutic rescue of HOXA-positive chemoresistant adult early thymic precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Trial Registration: The GRAALL-2003 and -2005 studies were registered at http://www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT00222027 and #NCT00327678, respectively.