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Fibrotic progression in Polycythemia vera is associated with early concomitant driver-mutations besides JAK2

Leukemia volume 32, pages 556–558 (2018)Cite this article

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Recently, Passamonti et al.1 provided a clinical-molecular model to predict survival in post polycythemia vera (PV) and post essential thrombocythemia myelofibrosis in this journal. We read this important contribution with great interest. However, since these authors concentrate their molecular analyses on JAK2, MPL and Calreticulin only, we would like to present the results of our more extended mutational profiling of PV patients with and without fibrotic progression which we performed in parallel.

PV belongs to the BCR-ABL negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) and is characterized by a long median survival of ~14 years.2, 3 In late stage disease (spent phase), up to 20% of the patients develop secondary myelofibrosis or transform to overt leukemia.2, 3, 4 Known risk factors for progressive disease are older age, leukocytosis and a complex karyotype. Almost all PV patients harbor a JAK2 mutation (p.V617F or exon 12). A high allelic burden of the JAK2 mutation was described as negative prognostic marker.5, 6 Other genetic risk factors for fibrotic progression in PV are not well understood.

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References

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the internal MHH funding program ‘HiLF’ for SB.

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  1. S Bartels and M Faisal: These authors contributed equally to this work

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  1. Institute of Pathology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

    S Bartels, M Faisal, G Büsche, J Schlue, H Kreipe & U Lehmann

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  1. S Bartels
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Correspondence to S Bartels.

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Bartels, S., Faisal, M., Büsche, G. et al. Fibrotic progression in Polycythemia vera is associated with early concomitant driver-mutations besides JAK2. Leukemia 32, 556–558 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/leu.2017.298

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