Identifying Ultra-High Risk Myeloma By Integrated Molecular Genetic and Gene Expression Profiling

Introduction

A significant proportion of myeloma patients relapse early and show short survival with current therapies. Molecular diagnostic tools are needed to identify these high risk patients at diagnosis to stratify treatment and offer the prospect of improving outcomes. Two validated molecular approaches for risk prediction are widely used: 1) molecular genetic risk profiling [e.g. del(17p), t(4;14)] 2) gene expression (GEP) risk profiling, [e.g. EMC92 (Kuiper et al., Leukemia 2012)]. We profiled patients from a large multicentric UK National trial using both approaches for integrated risk stratification.

Methods

A representative group of 221 newly diagnosed, transplant eligible patients (median age 64 years) treated on the UK NCRI Myeloma XI trial were molecularly profiled. DNA and RNA were extracted from immunomagnetically CD138-sorted bone marrow plasma cells. Molecular genetic profiles, including t(4;14), t(14;16), Del(17p), Gain(1q) were generated using MLPA (MRC Holland) and a TC-classification based qRT-PCR assay (Boyle EM, et al., Gen Chrom Canc 2015, Kaiser MF, et al., Leukemia 2013). GEP risk status as per EMC92 was profiled on a diagnostic Affymetrix platform using the U133plus2.0-based, CE-marked MMprofiler (SkylineDx) which generates a standardised EMC92 risk score, called 'SKY92'. Progression-free (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were measured from initial randomization and median follow-up for the analysed group was 36 months. Statistical analyses were performed using R 3.3.0 and the 'survival' package. Results were confirmed in an independent dataset, MRC Myeloma IX, for which median follow-up was 82.7 months.

Results

Of the 221 analysed patients, 116 were found to carry an established genetic high risk lesion [t(4;14), t(14;16), del(17p) or gain(1q)]. We and others have recently demonstrated that adverse lesions have an additive effect and that co-occurrence of ≥2 high risk lesions is specifically associated with adverse outcome (Boyd KD et al, Leukemia 2011). 39/221 patients (17.6%) were identified as genetic high risk with ≥2 risk lesions (termed HR2). By GEP, 53/221 patients (24.0%) were identified as SKY92 high risk. Genetic and GEP high risk co-occurred in 22 patients (10.0%), 31 patients (14.0%) were high risk only by GEP and 17 patients (7.7%) by genetics only.

SKY92 high risk status was associated with significantly shorter PFS (median 17.1 vs. 34.3 months; P<0.0001; Hazard ratio [HR] 3.2 [95%CI: 2.2-4.7]) and OS (median 36.0 vs. not reached; P<0.0001; HR 3.9 [2.3-6.9]). Genetic risk by HR2 was similarly associated with adverse outcome: median PFS 17.0 vs. 33.6 months; P<0.0001; HR 2.9 [1.9-4.4]), median OS 33.5 vs. not reached; P<0.0001; HR 4.1 [2.3-7.2]).

Importantly, by multivariate analysis GEP and genetic high risk status were independently associated with shorter PFS (P<0.001) and OS (P<0.005).

We next investigated interactions between genetic and gene expression high risk status. Three groups were defined: 1) Patients with both SKY92 and genetic (HR2) high risk status (n=22), 2) either GEP or genetic high risk (n=48) or 3) absence of GEP or genetic (HR2) high risk status (n=151). Co-occurring GEP and genetic high risk status was associated with very short PFS (median 12.5 vs. 20.0 vs. 38.3 months; P<0.0001) and OS (median 25.6 vs. 47.3 vs. not reached; P<0.0001) [Figure]. When comparing this ultra-high risk group against the remainder of cases (n=199), their risk of progressing and dying early was significantly elevated (PFS HR 4.4 [2.5-6.7]; OS HR 5.9 [3.1-11.0]).

We confirmed this finding in 116 transplant-eligible patients from the MRC Myeloma IX trial. Patients carrying both EMC92 and genetic high risk status had a median PFS of 7.8 vs. 25.5 months and median OS of 9.5 vs. 62.1 months (both P<0.0001). Moreover, all patients in this ultra-high risk group progressed within 24 months and died within 48 months.

Conclusion

We demonstrate, for the first time, that combined genetic and gene expression risk profiling identifies a group of patients with ultra-high risk disease behaviour with high fidelity, using molecular features of the disease. Our results indicate that GEP and genetic high risk profiling identify independently relevant, but inter-related features of high risk disease biology. Integrated genetic and gene expression risk profiling could serve as a valuable tool for risk stratified, innovative treatment approaches in myeloma.

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