Objectives: As we noted that CD30 is a valuable molecule in regulation of growth and death of lymphocytes in malignant lymphomas, we analyzed CD30 expression and serum soluble CD30 (sCD30) molecule level in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) to assess their role as a prognostic markers and to examine the possibility of anti-CD30 to be a targeted therapy in these patients.
Methods: We studied CD30 expression by Multicolor flow cytometry immunophenotypic analysis on bone marrow aspirates of 50 AML patients. Serum sCD30 level was measured by Enzyme Linked Immunosrbent Assay (ELSA). We correlate CD30 and sCD30 values with all of white blood cell counts, Hemoglobin, platelets, bone marrow blasts and cytogenetics. The Fisher’s exact test or chi-square was used for comparison of categorical variables and the ttest or one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied for numerical comparisons using SPSS version 20. A p value of <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.
Results: Our study conducted on 50 AML patients, the mean patients’ age was 47.4 ± 18.1 years (range, 17-77), 11 (22%) were males and 39 (78%) were females. 16 (32%) patients have high CD30-expression and 11 (22%) have elevated serum sCD30. We found that there was a significant correlation between both CD30 expression and sCD30 level with WBCs count, BM blasts, Adverse risk cytogenetics, FLT3/ITD and with relapse for CD30 expression, complete remission failure with elevated serum sCD30 level.
Conclusions: CD30 is expressed by myeloblasts in AML patients. We found that high CD30 expression and elevated sCD30 level can be used as prognostic markers for relapse and complete remission failure respectively. Furthermore, these patients with adverse risk cytogenetics have not too many treatment options, so the use antiCD30 targeted therapy may be a possible alternative for this patient group which need further studies.