A Genomic Approach to Improve Prognosis and Predict Therapeutic Response in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (Duke_VA)

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a heterogeneous malignancy, characterized by a variable clinical course. While clinical and laboratory parameters are increasingly being used to refine prognosis, they do not accurately predict response to commonly used therapy. We used gene expression profiling to generate and further refine prognostic and predictive markers. Genomic signatures that reflect progressive disease and responses to chemotherapy or chemo-immunotherapy were created using cancer cell lines and patient leukemia samples. We validated these signatures using independent clinical data from four separate cohorts representing a total of 301 CLL patients. A prognostic genomic signature created from patient leukemic cell gene expression data coupled with clinical parameters could statistically differentiate patients with stable or progressive disease in the training dataset. The progression signature was then validated in two independent datasets, demonstrating a capacity to accurately identify patients at risk for progressive disease. In addition, two distinct genomic signatures that predict response to chlorambucil or pentostatin, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab were also generated and were shown to accurately distinguish responding and non-responding CLL patients. Microarray analysis of CLL patients lymphocytes can be used to refine prognosis and predict response to different therapies. These results have direct implications for standard and investigational therapeutics in CLL patients.

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Friedman DR, Weinberg JB, Barry WT, Goodman BK, Volkheimer AD, Bond KM, Chen Y, Jiang N, Moore JO, Gockerman JP, Diehl LF, Decastro CM, Potti A, Nevins JR