Background: Despite outstanding cure rates of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), Blacks and Hispanics have inferior survival than Whites. We recently reported that among 794 children from DFCI ALL Consortium Protocol 05-001 trial, Hispanic patients had significantly lower rates of fracture and osteonecrosis, but higher risk of relapse and death compared with non-Hispanic Whites (PMID: 29090520). Studies from other groups have reported inferior ALL outcomes in children with Native American ancestry, however the association between genetic ancestry and skeletal toxicities has not been explored. We examined whether genetic inheritance could provide an explanation for the reduced incidence of skeletal toxicities in Hispanic patients in DFCI 05-001.
Methods: A total of 576 DNA samples extracted from bone marrow samples or blood samples obtained during remission, including 2% blind duplicates, were genotyped using the Illumina OmniExpress Beadchip array. After data QC and cleaning, 449 ALL patients were retained in the final analysis. Estimates of global genetic ancestry were derived from STRUCTURE program, which was used to re-classify individuals with discordant clinical race/ethnicity as reported by study site, and to assign individuals with unknown race/ethnicity information to an ethnic group when possible. Regression model for the subdistribution hazard of the cumulative incidence function was used to relate clinical race/ethnicity, genetically reclassified race/ethnicity, and genetic ancestry respectively with risk of fracture and osteonecrosis, with death and recurrence as competing risk factors while controlling for age, gender and baseline clinical factors. Cox proportional regression models were used to test race/ethnicity and ancestry with overall survival (OS) and event-free survival (EFS).
Results: Among the 449 patients analyzed, average age was 6.7 years; 26% of patients were ≥10 years and 44% were female. The demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with genotype data were similar to those of the overall cohort, although the proportion of Hispanics was slightly lower in the genotyped sub-cohort (17% vs. 21%), whereas the rates of fracture and osteonecrosis were higher (fracture: 25% vs. 18%; osteonecrosis: 10% vs. 8%).
Based on clinical race/ethnicity, 66% of patients were non-Hispanic White, 17% were Hispanic, 5% were non-Hispanic Black, 3% were Asian, and 10% were reported as Other. Genetic ancestry analyses revealed that non-Hispanic White patients had a median of 96% European ancestry, non-Hispanic Black patients had a median of 76% African ancestry, and Asian patients had a median of 58% Asian ancestry. The genetic make-up of Hispanic patients in the 05-001 cohort was more admixed, with 23% Native American and 17% African ancestry, higher than the national average (18% and 6%, respectively). After genetic reassignment, racial/ethnic groups were as follows: 68% non-Hispanic White, 17% Hispanic, 9% non-Hispanic Black, 6% Asian, and 1% unassigned.
In analysis of genetically reassigned race/ethnicity with skeletal toxicities, Hispanic and Black patients had significantly lower risk of fracture compared with white patients (Hispanic: subdistribution hazard ratio [SHR]=0.42, 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.22, 0.81; Black: HR=0.28, 95%CI=0.10, 0.75). These groups also had significantly less osteonecrosis (Hispanic: SHR=0.24, 95%CI=0.08, 0.78; Black: SHR=0.12, 95%CI=0.02, 0.93). Similar results were observed when using clinical race/ethnicity.
Further analyses revealed that African genetic ancestry, but not Native American ancestry was associated with lower risk of fracture and osteonecrosis in a dose-dependent manner (Table 1). In analysis of death and recurrence, those with higher proportion of Native American ancestry had significantly higher risk of death/recurrence after adjustment (OS: hazard ratio [HR]=4.00, 95%CI=1.45, 11.02; EFS: HR=2.07, 95%CI=1.13, 3.79). Analysis of single variants and polygenic risk scores with skeletal toxicities and survival outcomes is ongoing.
Conclusion: Hispanic children and adolescents from the DFCI 05-001 cohort, had highly heterogenous genetic ancestral make-up. Among Hispanic patients, the observed lower risk of skeletal toxicities might be driven by African ancestry, whereas poorer survival observed might be driven by Native American ancestry.
Silverman:Servier: Consultancy, Research Funding; Takeda: Consultancy.
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