Fidelity of peripheral blood for monitoring genomics and tumor immune‐microenvironment in myelodysplastic syndromes

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the peripheral blood (PB) can serve as a surrogate immune‐microenvironment to bone marrow for genetic and immune monitoring in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). We compared the composition of T cell subsets and somatic mutation burden in 36 pairs of PB and matching bone marrow aspirate (BMA) using multi‐parameter flow cytometry and NGS‐based targeted sequencing analysis, respectively. Our immune‐subset and NGS‐based mutation analysis of BMA showed significant concordance with those of PB in MDS. Therefore, PB can provide easily accessible tumor immune‐microenvironment for monitoring in the immune and genetic landscapes for MDS patients.