The relationship between nuclear pore expression, flow cytometry and prognosis i̇n childhood acute leukemia

The relationship between Nuclear Pore Expression, Flow Cytometry and Prognosis in Childhood Acute Leukemia Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the prognostic value of flow cytometry and Nuclear Pore Protein POM121 expression which is tought to be related with proliferation pathways and their interferance with other clinical pictures. Material and Method: In this study 69 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and 24 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) diagnosed between January 2008 and November 2013 were included. Results: Five year survival rate in ALL and AML patients were found to be 66 % and 80 % respectively. When flow cytometric aspect was evaluated for prognosis it was found that being CD 2 (+) had a poor effect and being CD 10 (+) was related with better overall survival. Five year survival rate was 77 % in CD2 (+), 58 % in CD2 (-), 82 % in CD10(+) and 61 % in CD10 (-) patients. However overall survival was not different significantly between patients with different flow cytometry results. (p>0.05) Nuclear pore protein POM121 expression was high in AML patients (5,79±7,04), although it was not considered relevant owing to small number of cases. (24) ALL patients did not have high protein expression (3,75±2,91). POM121 expression between acute leukemia patients and control group did not yield statistically significant differences. Same was observed between ALL and AML patients. Nuclear pore expression was not related with age, sex, overall survival, uneventful survival and disease free survival. Effect of nuclear pore protein expression on survival was evaluated within two groups, high and low, defined by control group. Between ALL and AML patients the difference was not statistically significant. (p>0,05) However ALL patients with high expression had 3 and 5 year survival of %56 and ALL patients with low expression had 3 and 5 year survival rate of %78 and %70 respectively. AML patients with low expression had 3 year survival rate of %82, 5 year survival rates were not established for this group. AML patients with high expression had 3 and 5 year survival of %70. We believe that if studies with more participants are conducted the difference will become significant. Conclusion: Nuclear pore protein expression was found highly in AML patients but it was statistically not significant which is thought to be related with low number of subjects. Flow cytometry results showed better 5 year survival rates in CD10 (+) patients and worse in CD2 (+) patients. It is the first conducted study about the expression of POM121 in acute childhood leukemia. Further studies with larger cohorts are required. Keywords: Acute leukemia, Nuclear pore protein, POM121, Prognosis, Flow Cytometry.