Prognostic significance of CXCR4 expression in acute myeloid leukemia

BACKGROUND: CXCR4 chemokine receptors play an important role in leukemia proliferation, extramedullary migration, infiltration, adhesion, and resistance to chemotherapy drugs. METHODS: The CXCR4 expression by flow cytometry in 122 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients between 2010 and 2014 was analyzed. RESULTS: The expression of CXCR4 in AML‐M4/M5 was found to be significantly higher than that of other subtypes according to both FAB subtype and WHO classification. The FLT3‐ITD mutant was significantly higher in high CXCR4 expression group (P = .0086). Our data also showed that CXCR4 expression was correlated with CD64 expression. Low CXCR4 expression on AML cells was associated with better prognosis, and the median overall survival (OS) for low CXCR4 expression patients was 318 days, compared with 206 days for patients with high CXCR4 expression (P = .045). Multivariate analysis revealed that CXCR4 expression, age, and extramedullary infiltration were independent prognostic factors. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated that CXCR4 expression in AML was an independent prognostic predictor for disease survival that could be rapidly and easily determined by flow cytometry at disease presentation.