Li, Marissa

Introduction Clonal cytopenias of undetermined significance (CCUS) is defined by the presence of somatic driver mutations/copy number variations in hematopoietic cells in patients with low blood counts, in the absence of morphological evidence for myeloid neoplasms. Patients with CCUS are often symptomatic and can be transfusion dependent (TD), with high rates of progression to myeloid neoplasms, especially myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). In addition, similar to MDS, there are reports of CCUS patients responding to hypomethylating agents. Due to the lack of a formal diagnosis/morphological dysplasia, CCUS patients are often denied therapies or clinical trial enrollment. We carried out this study to validate our hypothesis that CCUS shares similar clinical and survival characteristics with lower risk MDS (LR-MDS). Methods CCUS patients were prospectively identified from the clonal hematopoiesis clinic, whereas LR-MDS patients were retrospectively identified from our institutional database. LR-MDS was defined as very low, low and intermediate risk MDS based on the R-IPSS categorization. Baseline demographics, blood counts, bone marrow (BM) morphology, cytogenetics, and NGS results were abstracted. Transfusion dependency was defined as requiring at least one unit of red cell or platelets every 4 weeks. The Mann-Whitney-U and Fischer's exact test were used to compare quantitative and qualitative data in subgroups. Kaplan-Meier overall survival (OS) estimates were used for survival analysis and compared using the log-rank test. Results 186 patients were included in the study; 74 (40%) with CCUS and 112 (60%) with LR-MDS, median age 66 years, with 63% being male (Table 1). In the CCUS group, 93% had one or more mutations (67% >1 mutation) detected by NGS, while 7% had clonal cytogenetic abnormalities. Common mutations in CCUS included TET2 (30%), SRSF2 (20%), DNMT3A (13%) and ASXL1 (11%); with 28% of patients being red cell TD and 15% being platelet TD. On application of the R-IPSS stratification, 40%, 45%, 12% and 3% were in the very low, low, intermediate and high risk categories, respectively. LR-MDS subtypes included MDS-RS (50%), MDS-MLD (21%), MDS-EB (10%), MDS del5q (7%), and MDS-U (12%). SF3B1 mutations were seen in 67% (95% of MDS-RS), while TET2 and DNMT3A mutations were seen in 29% and 21%, respectively. 60% of LR-MDS patients had >1 mutation. 44% were red cell TD, while 10% were platelet TD. In comparison to patients with CCUS, LR-MDS patients were more likely to have higher white blood cell counts (p=0.002), higher neutrophil counts (p=0.009), higher platelet counts (p<0.001), be red cell TD (p=0.031), have BM ring sideroblasts (p<0.001), have higher BM blast% (p=0.004) and carry SF3B1 mutations (p<0.001); whereas CCUS patients were more likely to have higher monocyte counts (p=0.009) and more likely to carry IDH1 (p=0.005), ZRSR2 (p=0.005) and ATM (p=0.012) mutations. Importantly there were no differences with regards to R-IPSS cytogenetic risk groups, R-IPSS prognostic categories, platelet TD, and mutations involving TET2, DNMT3A, SRSF2 and ASXL1 and TP53. Notably signal pathway mutations and mutations involving tumor suppressor genes were infrequent (<5%) in both groups. The LR-MDS patients had a longer median follow up (53 vs 15 months) and at last follow up 72 (64%) and 11 (15%) deaths had been documented in the LR-MDS and CCUS groups respectively. 13 (18%) CCUS patients progressed to MDS (10) and AML (3) over a median of 15 months, while 9 (8%) LR-MDS patients progressed to higher grade MDS (1) and AML (8), respectively (median follow up 53 months). There was no difference in the median survival between CCUS (median OS not reached) versus LR-MDS (median OS 8.3 years) (p=0.372, Figure 1). Conclusion In spite of subtle phenotypic/molecular differences between LR-MDS and CCUS, both entities had similar prognostication, distribution of high risk mutations and survival outcomes. Within a short follow-up, 18% of CCUS patients progressed to MDS/AML, indicating that regardless of the absence of dysplasia these entities are a continuum of myeloid neoplasms. In order to improve access to treatments and clinical trial opportunities, we recommend that close consideration be given to consider CCUS as a MDS subtype. Disclosures Shah: Dren Bio: Consultancy.

Abstract In this study, we aimed to characterize the molecular mechanisms of two very rare subtypes of AML: acute megakaryoblastic leukemia (AMKL) and acute panmyelosis with myelofibrosis (APMF). Our goal is to describe the clinical-pathologic features of APMF and explore the genomic landscape AMKL to further understand these rare malignancies. We identified 35 patients diagnosed with AMKL (n=27) and APMF (n=8) at Mayo Clinic between 1995 and 2015 by retrospective chart review. For 10 of the AMKL patients, tissue was available for whole-exome sequencing and was analyzed in comparison to a published AML reference population. The median overall survival was shorter in patients with AMKL (3.9 months, 95% CI 1.7-7.4) than in patients with APMF (14.3 months, 95% CI 0.7-NE, p = 0.026,). For both AMKL and APMF, patients who underwent allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation had better overall survival (14.3 months, 95% CI 1.9-NE) compared to those not undergoing transplantation (4.6 months, 95% CI 1.5-7.4, p = 0.003). Patients with AMKL presented more frequently with splenomegaly, with higher peripheral blood blast counts, and with higher serum lactate dehydrogenase concentrations. 9 out of 10 AMKL patients with available tissue for sequencing demonstrated variants in 22 of 35 AML driver genes, with JAK2 V617F as the most common mutation. Although our small study numbers preclude firm conclusions, it does reflect the rarity of these AML subtypes. Furthermore, inferior survival in AMKL (compared to APMF) was reflected in its proliferative disease features such as splenomegaly, high blast counts, and high lactate dehydrogenase. Interestingly, the presence of JAK2 V617F variants in 40% of the interrogated samples was higher than expected. Although JAK2 is a known molecular driver in myeloproliferative neoplasms, it is actually very rare in de novo AML (~1%). Despite improved survival with allogeneic stem cell transplant, we can conclude that treatment outcomes for AMKL and APMF with standard-of-care therapy were sobering and that patients with these rare AML subtypes should undergo molecular evaluation to qualify them for clinical trials with novel targeted therapies. Citation Format: Marissa Li, Moritz Binder, Basma Basha, Ben Zhang, Alejandro Ferrer, Yuanhan Liu, Mrinal Patnaik, David Viswanatha, Naseema Gangat. Acute megakaryoblastic leukemia is associated with poor overall survival and enriched in JAK2 variants [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on the Evolving Landscape of Cancer Modeling; 2020 Mar 2-5; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B03.