mutations and disruptions are poor prognostic biomarkers in mantle cell lymphoma receiving high-dose therapy: a FIL study.

In recent years, the outcome of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) has improved, especially in younger patients, receiving cytarabine-containing chemoimmunotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation. Nevertheless, a proportion of MCL patients still experience early failure. To identify biomarkers anticipating failure of intensive chemotherapy in MCL, we performed target resequencing and DNA profiling of purified tumor samples collected from patients enrolled in the prospective (high-dose chemoimmunotherapy followed by autologous transplantation and randomized lenalidomide maintenance). Mutations of and disruption of by deletion or mutation associated with an increased risk of progression and death, both in univariate and multivariate analysis. By adding mutations and disruption to the MIPI-c backbone, we derived a new prognostic index, the "MIPI-genetic" ("MIPI- g"). The "MIPI-g" improved the model discrimination ability compared to the MIPI-c alone, defining three risk groups: i) low-risk patients (4-year progression free survival and overall survival of 72.0% and 94.5%); ii) inter-mediate-risk patients (4-year progression free survival and overall survival of 42.2% and 65.8%) and iii) high-risk patients (4-year progression free survival and overall survival of 11.5% and 44.9%). Our results: i) confirm that disruption identifies a high-risk population characterized by poor sensitivity to conventional or intensified chemotherapy; ii) provide the pivotal evidence that patients harboring mutations share the same poor outcome as patients harboring disruption; and iii) allow to develop a tool for the identification of high-risk MCL patients for whom novel therapeutic strategies need to be investigated. ().