Association Between Abnormal Lipid Profile and Inflammation and Progression of Myelodysplastic Syndrome to Acute Leukemia

Authors

Wei Qiao
Elliana Young
Chun Feng
Suyu Liu
Jeff Jin
Laila Noor
Cristhiam M Rojas Hernandez
Gautam Borthakur
Olga Gorlova
Vahid Afshar-Kharghan

Publication Date

9-16-2022

Journal

Experimental Hematology & Oncology

Abstract

Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) is associated with a small risk of developing hematologic malignancies and a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). We asked whether the reverse correlation exists and cardiometabolic risk factors have an impact on the progression of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). We investigated the association between abnormal lipid profiles and inflammation in MDS, which shares many genetic mutations with CHIP, and the risk of developing acute leukemia. We examined the medical records of 11071 MDS patients. Among them, 5422 had at least one lipid profile or C-reactive protein (CRP) measurement. In univariate and multivariate analyses, elevated triglyceride and high-sensitive C-reactive protein (HS-CRP) were significantly associated with a diagnosis of acute leukemia in MDS patients. Next, we examined these associations in patients with available MDS prognostic scores (International Prognostic Scoring System, IPSS, or its revised version IPSS/R) (n = 2786 patients). We found that the statistical association between CRP and the progression of MDS to leukemia was independent of other variables in the scoring system. MDS patients with elevated CRP in both the high-risk and low-risk groups had a higher risk of progression to AML than those with a lower CRP. We speculate that inflammation might be a common denominator in developing hematologic malignancies and CVD in patients with clonal hematopoiesis.

Keywords

Myelodysplastic syndrome, Acute Myeloid Leukemia, Clonal hematopoiesis, Inflammation, Triglyceride

Comments

Supplementary Materials

PMID: 36114519