The late Prof Terry Hamblin discovered that CLL IGVH mutation status clearly identified probable time to treatment, with patients IGVH mutated typically having a much longer time to treatment if they needed treatment at all. Furthermore, unlike other prognostic markers, the IGVH mutation prognostic marker doesn't change with time or treatment. Unfortunately the test has proven difficult to do reliably, driving the search for easier to perform alternatives which include ZAP-70 and CD38 status, which unfortunately do change over time and with treatment. No mention in this article whether chromatin profile testing could be developed to replace more difficult IGVH mutation testing, but watch this space...
'...chromatin profiles and gene regulatory networks accurately predicted IGHV mutation status and pinpointed differences between IGVH-mutated and IGVH-unmutated CLL.
“Our study has been able to dissect the variability that exists in the epigenome of CLL patients and helped to identify disease-specific changes, which will hopefully be informative for distinguishing disease subtypes or identifying suitable treatments,” said study author Jonathan Strefford, PhD, of the University of Southampton in the UK. '
Hematology Times (free registration)
hematologytimes.com/p_artic...
Neil
Photo: Sculpture of Emu and chicks made from shearing combs! That's a lot of shorn sheep!