Comparison of differences in blood laboratory results between acute promyelocytic leukemia and acute promyelocytic leukemia+FLT3-internal tandem duplication patients

BACKGROUND: Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a well-defined subtype of acute myeloic leukemia (AML) and known by t (15;17)(PML-RARA) mutation. About 20%–40% of AML patients indicate FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) mutations. FLT3 mutations contain two famous mutations: FLT3-internal tandem duplication (ITD) and FLT3-tyrosine kinase II domain. OBJECTIVES: Many studies have been done on FLT3-ITD. In these studies have been acknowledged that the FLT3-ITD mutation had a poor prognosis of on AML patients. This study was performed on two APL and APL + FLT3-ITD groups. This study aimed to compare the differences in blood laboratory assays between APL and APL + FLT3-ITD patients. METHODS: This study contained 73 patients which divided into two groups: APL and FLT3-ITD + APL. The study methods included: cell counting and peripheral blood smear, extraction of mRNA and DNA, and cDNA synthesis electrophoresis. RESULTS: This study was ruled out on patients involved with APL in GHAEM hospital Mashhad, Iran. All patients were diagnosed with t (15;17) (PML-RARA). The age range of patients was 7–63 years (mean: 30.86). Fifty-eight (79.5%) of patients (male: 22 and female: 36) were involved solely with APL and 15 (20.5%) of them (male: 10 and female: 5) were APL + FLT3-ITD mutation. Blood parameters that were analyzed included white blood cell, red blood cell, hemoglobin, hematocrit, mean cell volume, and platelet count. Each group of patients' population was categorized into high risk factors and low risk factors. CONCLUSIONS: the consequence of the current study demonstrated that FLT3-ITD mutation had a bad effect on laboratory assays in patients involved with APL