Changing the frequency and spectra of chromosomal aberrations in Korean patients with acute leukemia in a tertiary care hospital

BACKGROUND: Chromosomal analysis is essential for the diagnosis and risk stratification of all leukemia patients. Not surprisingly, racial differences in chromosomal aberrations (CA) in hematological malignancies could be found, and CA incidence in leukemia might change over time, possibly due to environmental and lifestyle changes. Thus, we compared the frequency and range of CA in patients with acute leukemia (AL) during two time periods (2006‒2009 vs. 2010‒2015) and compared them with other prior studies. METHODS: We enrolled 717 patients with AL during a six-year period (2010‒2015). We compared the results to those of our earlier study (2006‒2009) [1]. Conventional cytogenetics, a multiplex reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR system, and fluorescence in situ hybridization were employed to assess bone marrow specimens or peripheral blood at the diagnostic stage in AL patients to detect CA. RESULTS: The incidence of CA changed in the leukemia subgroups during the two time periods. Notably, the most frequent CA of childhood acute myeloid leukemia (AML) was PML/RARA, and was followed by RUNX1/RUNX1T1 in the current study. In contrast, the most common CA was RUNX1/RUNX1T1 in a previous study [1] and was followed by PML/RARA. In this study, the most frequent CA of the mixed phenotype AL was BCR/ABL1, which was followed by KMT2A/MLLT3. In a previous report, [1] the most frequent CA was BCR/ABL1, which was followed by KMT2A/ELL. CONCLUSION: The distribution of CA in Korean AL patients changed over time in a single institute. This change might be due to environmental and lifestyle changes.