Impact of the host genetic background on prognosis of chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

摘要

Sellick et al showed the prognostic role of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The primary end point of the study was progression-free survival (PFS) after first treatment.1 Several factors may limit the general applicability of these results. (1) PFS after first treatment applies to a CLL population biased for unfavorable characteristics compared with a consecutive CLL cohort. (2) The search for SNPs relevant for PFS after first treatment may be enriched with pharmacogenetic SNPs more related to chemotherapy than to CLL kinetics. (3) One of the SNPs identified by Sellick et al1 remained significantly associated with CLL outcome after adjusting for multiple comparisons. (4) Validation in an independent CLL cohort was not performed.