Hereditary Thrombocytosis |
1 Department of Hematology
3 Department of Pathology, Catholic University, Rome
2 Division of Hematology, Department of Cellular Biotechnologies and Hematology, "La Sapienza" University, Rome, Italy
Correspondence: Luigi M. Larocca, MD, Istituto di Anatomia Patologica, Università Cattolica, Largo, Gemelli 8, 00168 Roma, Italy. E-mail: llarocca{at}rm.unicatt.it
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Design and Methods: We extended the search for this mutation to all patients with essential thrombocythemia who had a positive family history for thrombocytosis or essential thrombocythemia. We identified eight Italian families positive for the MPLSer505Asn mutation. Clinical and hematologic data were available for members of seven families, including 21 patients with a proven mutation and 20 relatives with thrombocytosis.
Results: Fifteen major thrombotic episodes, nine of which were fatal, were recorded among 41 patients. The thrombotic manifestation was stroke in four cases, myocardial infarction in seven cases, fetal loss in two cases, deep vein thrombosis of the leg in one case and Budd Chiari syndrome in one case. Almost all patients over 20 years old had splenomegaly and bone marrow fibrosis, while these were rarely observed in patients under 20 years old, suggesting that these manifestations are associated with aging. Finally, the life expectancy of family members with thrombocytosis was significantly shorter than that of members without thrombocytosis (P=0.003).
Conclusions: Patients with familial thrombocytosis caused by a MPLSer505Asn mutation have a high risk of thrombosis and, with aging, develop splenomegaly and bone marrow fibrosis, significantly affecting their life expectancy.
Key words: MPLSer505Asn, hereditary thrombocytosis, splenomegaly, bone marrow fibrosis.
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In 2004, Ding et al. described the pedigree of a Japanese family with thrombocythemia caused by a G to A nucleotide substitution at position 1073 in exon 10 of MPL, leading to the exchange of serine for asparagine at position 505 (MPLSer505Asn).10 The authors clearly demonstrated that cells expressing MPLSer505Asn showed autonomous phosphorylation of both Mek1/2 and STAT5 down signaling transduction pathways, but the clinical course of the disease in the affected individuals was not reported.10 Recently, we evaluated a large cohort of Italian children with familial thrombocythemia and detected the germ line MPLSer505Asn mutation in many of them,11–13 suggesting that this molecular defect might be rather frequent in our country. For this reason, we extended the search for the MPLSer505Asn mutation also to adult patients with essential thrombocythemia who had a positive family history of essential thrombocythemia or thrombocytosis. Here we describe the results of this extended search.
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A family history was collected from all patients and the survival of family members with thrombocytosis was compared to that of the members without thrombocytosis. All blood samples were collected after informed consent and the study was approved by the local institutional review boards.
Molecular analysis
Genomic DNA was isolated using standard procedures from peripheral blood or buccal swab samples. Mutation analysis of the MPL (exon 10) gene was carried out by sequencing, as described elsewhere.11 The presence of THPO 5'untranslated region mutations and of JAK2V617F mutations was excluded. Moreover, clonality of hematopoiesis was examined in all female patients by the human androgen receptor assay (HUMARA) and by HUMARA methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction analysis. The methods used to analyze MPL, THPO 5'untranslated region and JAK2V617F mutations and clonality have been described in detail elsewhere.11
Flow cytometry analysis
In order to investigate the state of activation of leukocytes in patients with the MPLSer505Asn mutation, we measured the expression of CD11b on the neutrophil membrane, by using mouse anti-human CD11b/Mac.1 antibody (BD, Pharmingen), as described previously.14 The results are expressed as mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) in arbitrary units and compared to those obtained in ten normal controls and in five control patients with essential thrombocythemia.
Statistical analysis
Statistical analyses were performed with GraphPad software using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests for continuous variables, and Fishers exact test or the
2 test for categorical variables, as appropriate. p values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate univariate survival curves, and the log-rank test was adopted to compare the survival curves.
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Table 1. Hematologic and clinical findings at the time of the first observation or at the last follow-up* in patients carrying the MPLSer505Asn mutation.
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Figure 1. Hematoxylin-eosin and silver staining of bone marrow biopsies from three patients aged 16 (A and B), 43 (C and D) and 69 years (E and F), affected by hereditary thrombocythemia due to the MPLSer505Asn mutation. A: shows a slightly hypercellular bone marrow with an increase in the number of neutrophils and atypical megakaryocytes with deviations from the normal nuclear:cytoplasmic ratio and the frequent occurrence of bare megakaryocytic nuclei. B: reticulin fibrosis is absent. C: shows a hypercellular bone marrow with an increase in the number of atypical megakaryocytes that form dense clusters. D: loose network of reticulin with many intersections. E, F: shows a bone marrow biopsy mainly characterized by a diffuse increase in reticulin with focal bundles of collagen and with numerous distorted megakaryocytes. A-F 250x.
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Hematologic and clinical findings of patients with MPLSer505Asn
The hematologic and clinical findings recorded at the time of the first observation or at the last follow-up in 21 evaluable family members (11 males and 10 females) carrying the MPLSer505Asn mutation are shown in Table 1. The median age at the time of the first observation was 18 years (range, 1–76) and the median time of follow-up was 9 years (range, 1–34). A slight increase of white blood cell count was noted in one patient who had undergone splenectomy because of traumatic rupture of the spleen (patient S1). Mild anemia was found at diagnosis in four patients: one of them (patient T1) had impaired renal function, and the other three (patients S1, F3, and M10) had enlarged spleen volume and/or significant bone marrow fibrosis. Anemia was documented in two patients during the follow-up (patients S2 and B8). Both patients developed splenomegaly and bone marrow fibrosis, and received antiproliferative therapy (Table 1).
Splenomegaly was detected at diagnosis in nine out of 20 cases (patient T1 was not evaluable because of traumatic rupture of the spleen before the diagnosis of the hematologic disorder). Of these nine patients, eight (S1, S2, M10, F1, F3, B8, B13, and B14, Table 1) were older than 20 years (P<0.0001 at Fishers exact test). Two additional patients (T8 and C2, Table I) developed splenomegaly during the follow-up.
Results of bone marrow biopsies were available for 16 patients previously diagnosed as having essential thrombocythemia. The grade of fibrosis and hypercellularity were defined as previously stated.16 In young patients, the histological picture was characterized by hypercellular bone marrow with an increased number of neutrophils and atypical megakaryocytes, in the absence of reticulin fibrosis (Table 1 and Figure 2, A-B). However, in adult and elderly patients, overt bone marrow fibrosis, with several atypical megakaryocytes forming dense clusters and progressive increase of reticulin with many intersections and focal bundles of collagen, was detected (Table 1 and Figure 2, C-F). In three patients (S2, F3, and M9, Table 1), the bone marrow biopsy was performed at diagnosis and thereafter during the course of the disease: an increase of reticulin fibrosis was documented in all three cases.
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Figure 2. Pedigrees of the seven Italian families carrying the MPLSer505Asn mutation. Squares denote men, circles women and a slash indicates a person who has died. Solid symbols indicate affected members, shaded symbols members with thrombocytosis not investigated for the mutation and white symbols members with a normal platelet count. Arrows indicate those patients who experienced one or more thrombotic complications (between brackets the age at the time of the thrombosis).
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With regards to therapy, low dose aspirin was given at diagnosis or during the follow-up to 15 out of the 21 patients. The indication for antiplatelet therapy in all treated children was headache. Hemorrhagic complications were not observed, even though extreme thrombocytosis (platelet count >2000x109/L) was recorded during the follow-up in two children. Six patients also received antiproliferative therapy, which consisted of hydroxycarbamide in four cases and interferon in two other patients. The reasons for starting antiproliferative treatment were a high risk of thrombosis in patients over 65 years old (patients F1, S1 and B8), previous thrombosis at diagnosis (patient S2), reported discomfort from splenomegaly (patient M10), and a high platelet count (patient I2). Three female patients completed a total of seven uncomplicated pregnancies; in two cases, antiplatelet drugs were administered throughout the pregnancy, replaced by low dose heparin in the peri-partum period.
The hematologic parameters at diagnosis and the incidences of thrombotic complications and splenomegaly recorded in patients with MPLSer505Asn were compared with those observed in 72 patients with non-familial essential thrombocythemia grouped according to the presence of the JAK2V617F mutation (Table 2). The white blood cell count was lower in patients with MPLSer505Asn than in patients with either JAK2V617F or the wild-type JAK2 (JAK2WT) (P=0.04; Table 2). The concentration of hemoglobin was lower in MPLSer505Asn patients than in JAK2V617F patients (P=0.02) but not JAK2WT patients (Table 2). Finally, no differences were found in platelet counts, or the incidences of thrombotic complications or splenomegaly between patients with MPLSer505Asn and those with essential thrombocythemia.
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Table 2. Hematologic and clinical findings in patients with hereditary MPLSer505Asn mutation, in comparison with those of patients with essential thrombocythemia grouped according to JAK2 mutation status.
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Among the 15 family members who died, nine died of thrombosis, three patients died of undefined complications of myelofibrosis (2 cases) or essential thrombocythemia, one patient died of liver cirrhosis, one patient died of gastric cancer and one patient died of an unknown cause. The overall survival and thrombosis-free survival of family members with thrombocytosis were compared to those recorded in 23 relatives without thrombocytosis. For this purpose, only relatives with a detailed medical history were included in the analysis. As illustrated in Figure 3 both overall survival and thrombosis-free survival appear to be significantly shortened in individuals with thrombocytosis (P=0.003 and P=0.0009, for overall survival and thrombosis-free survival, respectively).
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Figure 3. Overall and thrombosis-free survival in 41 family members with documented or reported thrombocytosis in comparison with survival in 23 unaffected familial members.
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Our second major finding was that the MPLSer505Asn mutation induces splenomegaly with aging. Indeed, the detection of an enlarged spleen at diagnosis seemed to be significantly dependent on the age of patients, and, ultimately, on disease duration. Accordingly, a progressive increase of spleen volume was documented during the follow-up. Finally, the bone marrow showed a histological picture that closely resembled that of primary myelofibrosis, because of the hypercellularity and atypical megakaryocytes present in the early stages of the disease, and because of progression towards a significant fibrosis with aging (Figure 1). Interestingly, Beer et al. reported that patients with essential thrombocythemia carrying the acquired MPLW515L/K mutation more frequently had bone marrow fibrosis as compared to patients with MPLWT.22
Two germ line MPL mutations have been so far reported: the MPLBaltimore polymorphism23 and the MPLp.Pro106Leu mutation.24 Both these mutations involve the extracellular domain of MPL, affecting its binding ability to thrombopoietin. In fact, these patients have high serum levels of thrombopoietin,23 probably because of decreased thrombopoietin clearance. Interestingly, thrombosis, splenomegaly and bone marrow fibrosis have never been reported in patients with these mutations. In contrast, the MPLSer505Asn mutation appears functionally similar to the MPLW515L mutation: while the former involves juxtamembrane domains and the latter intracellular domains, both can autonomously activate downstream signal transduction pathways.10,25 Indeed, it is not surprising that the clinical course of an MPLSer505Asn mutation-related disease is consistent with that of a myeloproliferative disorder presenting with thrombocytosis already at the time of birth, causing a significant thrombotic risk also at young age, and inducing splenomegaly, bone marrow fibrosis and progressive anemia with aging. The clinical penetrance of this genetic defect appears to be variable, considering that some family members carry the mutation but have few or no clinical manifestations. However, given the progressive nature of the disease and its possible evolution to myelofibrosis, patients with the MPLSer505Asn mutation might benefit from kinase inhibitors designed for patients with MPLW515L/K and JAK2-mutated myeloproliferative diseases.26
The online version of this article has a supplementary appendix.
LT designed the study, analyzed data and wrote the manuscript; FG contributed to the study design, analyzed data and critically reviewed the manuscript; MM contributed to the study design and, with TC, performed molecular analyses; CR performed the flow cytometry analysis; LT, BMR and VN enrolled patients and recorded clinical data; GL and RF critically reviewed the manuscript; LML designed the study and wrote the manuscript.
The authors reported no conflicts of interest.
Received for publication February 16, 2009. Revision received July 6, 2009. Accepted for publication July 28, 2009.
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