Activating FLT3 Mutations in CD4⁺/CD8⁻ Pediatric T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemias.

Activating mutations in the FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 gene (FLT3) are the most common genetic aberration in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Internal tandem duplications (ITD) in the juxtamembrane (JM) domain, or point mutations (PM) in the activation loop of the tyrosine kinase domain lead to a constitutive activated state of the FLT3 tyrosine kinase. Recently, FLT3 mutations were identified in a cohort of 69 adult T-ALL patients, showing that this genetic abnormality is not only restricted to myeloid leukemias. To validate the incidence of FLT3 mutations in pediatric T-ALL and investigate its relation to outcome and other clinical and immunophenotypical parameters, we screened 72 diagnostic pediatric T-ALL samples. FLT3/ITD mutations were identified in 2/72 pediatric T-ALLs (2.7%), whereas 0/72 showed point mutations in the kinase domain. Immunophenotypic analysis revealed a similar profile for both FLT3 mutated patient samples, i.e. TdT⁺, CD2⁺, CD5⁺, CD7⁺, CD4⁺/CD8⁻, cytoplasmic CD3⁺, surface CD3⁻ and CD10⁻. Although representing early T-cell differentiation stages for both patient samples, these cases seem to have a more advanced immunophenotype compared to the FLT3 mutated adult T-ALL cases, previously described (CD34⁺, CD4⁻/CD8⁻). Both FLT3 mutated patients showed high level LYL1 and LMO2 expression. In addition, both pediatric samples contained a HOX11L2 translocation, which was not present in the FLT3 mutated adult T-ALL cases. The first FLT3 mutated patient suffered a relapse 13 months after initial diagnosis, whereas the other is still in continued complete remission for 61⁺ months. Interestingly, the relapse material showed no FLT3/ITD mutation, indicating that the FLT3 mutated T-ALL subclone seems to be effectively eradicated by current chemotherapy. These data suggest that the application of FLT3 inhibitors for FLT3-mutated T-ALLs, as recently suggested in literature, may not further improve treatment outcome in pediatric T-ALL.