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CHRONIC LYMPHOCYTIC LEUKEMIA

T-prolymphocytic leukemia: TCL1 or MTCP1 rearrangement is not mandatory to establish diagnosis

Leukemia volume 37, pages 1919–1921 (2023)Cite this article

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T-prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL) is a rare mature T-cell neoplasm usually associated with rearrangements of TCL1 or MTCP1 [1]. Cases of T-cell leukemia showing overlapping features with T-PLL but lacking TCL1 or MTCP1 rearrangement have been occasionally described [2,3,4,5,6,7,8] but a systematic study of these cases is unavailable. It is unknown if these cases represent a distinct type of T-cell leukemia or belong within the category of T-PLL. In this study, we aimed to fully characterize these neoplasms at the clinical, cytogenetic and molecular level and to explore their potential relationship to prototypic T-PLL carrying TCL1 rearrangement.

The study cohort included 20 cases of mature T-cell leukemia with the following inclusion criteria: 1) neoplastic T-cells primarily involving primarily blood and bone marrow; 2) no expression of TCL1 by immunohistochemistry; 3) no abnormalities of TCL1 by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and conventional karyotyping; 4) no t(X;14)(q28;q11.2) involving MTCP1 by conventional karyotyping; and 5) not meeting criteria for any other T-cell leukemias/lymphomas described in the current WHO classification [9].

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Fig. 1: Survial analysis of 20 cohort patients and 42 prototypic T-PLL patients.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Joshua Baguley, Marcus Coyle, and Jianhua Zhang from Department of Genomic Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center for their help with whole exome sequencing and Sanger sequencing. Advanced Technology Genomics Core at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center (NCI grant CA016672). PAF is supported by the Cancer Prevention Research Institute (R120501) and the Welch Foundation’s Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Chair Award (G-0040). AFI and NL were funded by the CPRIT Research Training Program grant RP170067 to MD Anderson Cancer Center.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hematopathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Hong Fang, Sa A. Wang, Zhenya Tang, Guilin Tang, M. James You, Shimin Hu, Jie Xu, Shaoying Li, C. Cameron Yin, Siba El Hussein, Carlos Bueso-Ramos, Beenu Thakral, L. Jeffrey Medeiros & Wei Wang

  2. Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Hannah C. Beird, Andrew F. Ibrahim, Nhi Le, P. Andrew Futreal, Rebecca Thornton, Latasha Little, Curtis Gumbs & Xingzhi Song

  3. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine, Lubbock, TX, USA

    Andrew F. Ibrahim

  4. Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Tapan M. Kadia

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  1. Hong Fang
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Contributions

HF, SAW, LJM, and WW designed the study. HF, LJM and WW wrote the manuscript. HCB, AFI, NL, PAF, RT, LL, CG, and XS performed whole exome and Sanger sequencing. ZT and GT provided cytogenetic data. MJY, SH, JX, SL, CCY, SHE, CBR, BT, and TMK analyzed the data. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wei Wang.

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Fang, H., Beird, H.C., Wang, S.A. et al. T-prolymphocytic leukemia: TCL1 or MTCP1 rearrangement is not mandatory to establish diagnosis. Leukemia 37, 1919–1921 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41375-023-01956-3

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