Correlation of Pretreatment Hoct1 Expression Levels on Imatinib Response in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Patients

Sailaja Kagita; Raghunadharao Digumarti

Volume : IV, Issue : III, March - 2015

Correlation of Pretreatment Hoct1 Expression Levels on Imatinib Response in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Patients

Sailaja Kagita, Raghunadharao Digumarti

Abstract :

Suboptimal responses to imatinib in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) depend on either Bcr–Abl kinase domain mutations or varied intra cellular drug concentration. The hOCT1 gene mediates the intake of imatinib and maintains intracellular levels. To study the association of hOCT1 expression in newly diagnosed CML patients. One hundred and nine pretreatment CML samples were analyzed for hOCT1 mRNA expression using real–time PCR. Patients were grouped into low– and high– hOCT1 expressing groups based on median value as cut off point and correlated with different variables. Patients having high hOCT1 levels are significantly associated with chronic phase (p=0.001), low EUTOS risk (p=0.01) and achievement of complete cytogenetic response at 6 months after imatinib initiation (p=0.03). We could not found any significant association with low hOCT1 levels. Hence the present study suggests that pretreatment hOCT1 levels might be used as prognostic marker in predicting the clinical response to imatinib in CML patients.