Regions of homozygosity confer a worse prognostic impact in myelodysplastic syndrome with normal karyotype

EJHaem. 2023 Feb 7;4(2):446-449. doi: 10.1002/jha2.651. eCollection 2023 May.

Abstract

Half of the myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) have normal karyotype by conventional banding analysis. The percentage of true normal karyotype cases can be reduced by 20-30% with the complementary application of genomic microarrays. We here present a multicenter collaborative study of 163 MDS cases with a normal karyotype (≥10 metaphases) at diagnosis. All cases were analyzed with the ThermoFisher® microarray (either SNP 6.0 or CytoScan HD) for the identification of both copy number alteration(CNA) and regions of homozygosity (ROH). Our series supports that 25 Mb cut-off as having the most prognostic impact, even after adjustment by IPSS-R. This study highlights the importance of microarrays in MDS patients, to detect CNAs and especially to detect acquired ROH which has demonstrated a high prognostic impact.

Keywords: chromosome; cytogenetics; microarrays; molecular cytogenetics; myelodysplastic syndromes.