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Ancestry and pharmacogenomics of relapse in acute lymphoblastic leukemia

  • Jun J. Yang
  • , Cheng Cheng
  • , Meenakshi Devidas
  • , Xueyuan Cao
  • , Yiping Fan
  • , Dario Campana
  • , Wenjian Yang
  • , Geoff Neale
  • , Nancy J. Cox
  • , Paul Scheet
  • , Michael J. Borowitz
  • , Naomi J. Winick
  • , Paul L. Martin
  • , Cheryl L. Willman
  • , W. Paul Bowman
  • , Bruce M. Camitta
  • , Andrew Carroll
  • , Gregory H. Reaman
  • , William L. Carroll
  • , Mignon Loh
  • Stephen P. Hunger, Ching Hon Pui, William E. Evans, Mary V. Relling

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

238 Scopus citations

Abstract

Although five-year survival rates for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are now over 80% in most industrialized countries1, not all children have benefited equally from this progress2. Ethnic differences in survival after childhood ALL have been reported in many clinical studies3-11, with poorer survival observed among African Americans or those with Hispanic ethnicity when compared with European Americans or Asians3-5. The causes of ethnic differences remain uncertain, although both genetic and non-genetic factors are likely important 4,12. Interrogating genome-wide germline SNP genotypes in an unselected large cohort of children with ALL, we observed that the component of genomic variation that co-segregated with Native American ancestry was associated with risk of relapse (P = 0.0029) even after adjusting for known prognostic factors (P = 0.017). Ancestry-related differences in relapse risk were abrogated by the addition of a single extra phase of chemotherapy, indicating that modifications to therapy can mitigate the ancestry-related risk of relapse.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)237-241
Number of pages5
JournalNature Genetics
Volume43
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2011
Externally publishedYes

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