Hello everybody,
I have been diagnosed three weeks ago with early CP of CML and I am currently on Tasigna 300 mg/day for a week.
Can somebody please help me to understand what is the meaning of phrase: "Myeloblasts aberrantly express CD7 mark"? It´s in a report evaluating my initial bone marrow examination. Could it be bad for my prognosis?
Thanks a lot, Tomas
Hi Tomas,
I doubt that it means anything about your prognosis. Our blood is usually pretty messed up when we're diagnosed. Hopefully you'll have a good response with Tasigna and your blood results will normalize. You might want to post your question at https://communityview.lls.org/groups/chronic-myeloid-leukemia
Someone there may have an idea as to whether the CD7 expression has any significance.
Welcome to the club! (that you didn't ask to join)
Kirk
Hi Kirk,
thanks for your answer and support. Thanks also for that link, I´ll appreciate it and will definitely ask there.
I am worried because I have read some papers (there are only few in general) recetnly regarding CD7 issue. To be honest I am far from fully understanding this immunophenotypizatio stuff. However things like "clinical data suggest that CD7+ myeloblasts are linked with poor prognosis in myeloid malignancies" etc. are rather frightening.
http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/clincanres/11/2/505.full.pdf
I thought I'd post the response Tomas got on the LLS CML group in case anyone else was interested.
https://communityview.lls.org/statuses/6302
"You only know that because a Flow Cytometry was done on your blood at diagnosis. Most CML patients do not have that done, so it does not come up as an issue. At diagnosis there are numerous aberrations in the blood of a CML patient. Until you have taken the TKI drugs for probably a year or so these early markers cannot be used for prediction. Besides, myeloid progenitors (myeloblasts) expressing CD7+ are not as big an issue as lymphoid progenitors (lymphoblasts) expressing CD7+.
Quote: "In contrast to aberrant myeloid markers, the detection of lymphoid markers by Flow Cytometry at the time of the diagnosis of CP-CML appears to be associated with early progression to lymphoid BP."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25387987
The reason is that CML progression to Blast Phase is usually through the lymphoid line, not through the myeloid line. CML is primarily a disease of the myeloid line, but progression is often a lymphoid issue. Therefore, do not worry about these early diagnostic tests when your blood has many issues caused by the CML. The key will be how well you respond to the TKI drug. If you respond to the TKI drugs then all is well. The remainder of these blood aberrations will resolve themselves over time as the TKI drugs do their job."
