Background: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a hematologic malignancy characterized
by poor outcomes in adults. Traditional diagnostic and prognostic markers take into account
clinical data but also rely heavily on expensive and invasive tests such as bone marrow studies
with cytogenetics. CD155 is an adhesion molecule that also modulates immune response in
malignancy. Previous studies have shown that serum CD155 (sCD155) levels are higher in
patients with malignancies, and have demonstrated a correlation between higher levels of
sCD155 and poor outcomes. This study investigated the diagnostic and prognostic value of
sCD155 in adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Methodology: 32 adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and 15 control patients were
enrolled in this study. Clinical and outcome data were collected from patients and a blood sample
from patients and controls was collected with ELISA testing for sCD155 levels.
Results: sCD155 was found to be significantly higher in patients than controls (p<0.05) and was
significantly associated with bone marrow aspirate blast count. It was not associated with other
clinical parameters including gender, age, initial CBC parameter counts, presence of
lymphadenopathy, presence of CNS infiltration, presence of Philadelphia chromosome, type of
ALL, or risk stratification of ALL besides being associated with hepatosplenomegaly. ROC curve
showed high sensitivity and specificity of sCD155 and Kaplan Meir curve showed a trend
towards worse outcomes in patients with high sCD155 but it was not statistically significant.
Conclusion: sCD155 remains a promising marker for diagnosis of ALL but further studies are
needed to confirm its prognostic value.
Disclosures
No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
