51 PATIENTS WITH ACUTE MYELOID-LEUKEMIA AND TRANSLOCATION T(8-21)(Q22-Q22) - AN ADDITIONAL DELETION IN 9Q IS AN ADVERSE PROGNOSTIC FACTOR

The translocation t(8;21)(q22;q22) occurs in 6 to 12% of patients with AML, and usually predicts a good response to chemotherapy with a high remission rate and a relatively long median survival. The influence o f additional chromosome aberrations on the clinical outcome of patient s with t(8;21) is unclear. We analyzed 51 cases of acute myeloid leuke mia carrying a translocation t(8;21)(q22;q22); 23 female and 28 male p atients. The complete remission rate was 92% and median overall surviv al was 52.4 months. The median overall survival of female patients was significantly worse than of male patients (37.2 months vs not reached , P=0.025). Additional chromosome aberrations were detected in 41 pati ents at diagnosis (80%), 31 (61%) had lost a sex chromosome, seven (14 %) showed a partial deletion of the long arm of chromosome 9 and in th ree patients (6%) a gain of chromosome 8 was observed. Whereas the las s of a sex chromosome had no influence on prognosis, a partial deletio n of the long arm of chromosome 9 was an unfavorable prognostic factor . The median overall survival of the seven patients with del(9q) was o nly 12.5 months and thus significantly shorter than in patients with o nly t(8;21) or with t(8;21) and additional sex chromosome loss (median survival not reached; P=0.0010).