COBLL1 , LPL and ZAP70 expression defines prognostic subgroups of chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients with high accuracy and correlates with IGHV mutational status.

The clinical course of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is highly variable. Patients with unmutatedIGHV(U-CLL) usually progress rapidly, whereas patients with mutatedIGHV(M-CLL) have a more indolent disease. The expression of several genes correlates closely with theIGHVmutational status and could be used to assess prognosis in CLL. We analyzed the prognostic relevance ofCOBLL1,LPL,andZAP70gene expression, which correlated withIGHVmutational status (p < 0.0001), in 117 CLL patients and established a prognostic parameter dividing the tested cohort according to the disease aggressiveness. Our prognostic parameter was validated on an independent cohort of 161 CLL patients and achieved a high accuracy (94%). Patients divided according to the prognostic parameter differ in overall survival and time to first treatment (p < 0.0001, HR  = 2.300/5.970, 95% CI: 1.587–3.450/4.621–15.86). Our approach provides a reliable alternative method to prognosis assessment viaIGHVmutational status analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]