Myeloid Neoplasia in Patients with Hereditary Hemoglobinopathies and Hemolytic Anemias (HHAs)
Authors: Osei Miriam A. , Merz Lauren E. , Chien Kelly S. , Hammond Danielle E. , Lindsley Coleman , Luskin Marlise R. , Stahl Maximilian , How Joan , Wazir Mohammed , Marneth Anna E. , Shimony Shai , Mullally Ann , DeAngelo Daniel J. , Garcia-Manero Guillermo , Achebe Maureen Okam , Ebert Benjamin L. , Weeks Lachelle D. 
Published: December 2023

Background: Studies have shown an increased incidence of myeloid neoplasia (MN) in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). It is hypothesized that increased erythropoietic stress may influence acquisition of molecular drivers of MN in SCD. However, present understanding of MN presentation and outcomes in SCD and other hereditary hemoglobinopathies and hemolytic anemias (HHAs) is limited to case reports. Systematic evaluation of MNs in patients with HHAs will better contextualize the risk of MN in this population relative to non-HHA controls.

Methods: Patients with HHAs were identified from the Mass General Brigham Research Patient Data Repository using ICD-10 codes. Evaluated HHAs included sickle cell disease (SCD), sickle cell trait (SCT), thalassemia major, thalassemia trait, other hemoglobinopathy traits, and hereditary spherocytosis or elliptocytosis. A final HHA-MN cohort included patients with laboratory confirmed HHA diagnoses as well as incident myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML), Ph+ chronic myelogenous leukemia (Ph+ CML), Ph negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (Ph- MPNs) or acute myeloid leukemia (AML). A control cohort of non-HHA MN patients was obtained from the Dana-Farber Hematologic Malignancies Data Repository. Clinical, molecular, and survival data were summarized and compared between HHA-MN and controls.

Results: The HHA-MN cohort included 62 patients with HHAs and incident MN (Table 1). HHAs included SCD (n = 6, 9.7%), SCT (n = 9, 14.5%), thalassemia trait (n = 36, 58.1%), thalassemia major (n = 2, 3.2%), hereditary spherocytosis or elliptocytosis (n = 4, 6.5%), and other hemoglobinopathy traits (n = 5, 8.1%). MN was diagnosed at a median age of 61 years [IQR: 48, 70] in the HHA-MN cohort and incident MNs included AML (n = 12, 19.4%), MDS/CMML (n = 22, 35.4%), Ph+ CML (n = 6, 9.7%), and Ph- MPNs (n = 22, 35.4%). A control population of 3388 MN patients without HHA included cases of AML (n = 754, 22.2%), MDS/CMML (n= 1272, 37.5%), Ph+ CML (n = 354, 10.4%), and Ph- MPNs (n = 1008, 29.7%). Compared to HHA patients, control patients were older at MN diagnosis (median age 65 years [IQR: 56, 73], p = 0.0071), driven by significantly younger ages at AML diagnosis for HHA-MN patients (median age 50 years [IQR: 33, 63] vs 65 years [IQR: 57, 73], p =0.0044).

AML was the most common MN in SCD (n = 4, 66.7%) whereas incident MDS/CMML was the predominant MN among individuals with thalassemia trait (n = 12, 33.3%) or hereditary spherocytosis and elliptocytosis (n = 2, 50%). Diagnostic cytogenetic data were available for 45 patients in the HHA-MN cohort (72.6% of cohort). Complex karyotype, defined as 3 or more chromosomal aberrations, was observed in 3 of 11 (27.3%) AML, 3 of 19 (15.8%) MDS/CMML and 1 of 17 (5.9%) Ph- MPN cases. Of the 33 HHA-MN patients with available diagnostic next generation sequencing, 60.6% had 2 or more pathogenic mutations at MN diagnosis. Including 2 cases of TP53-mutant AML in patients with SCD, the majority (90%) of AML and 38.9% of MDS/CMML diagnosed in HHA-MN patients were intermediate to adverse risk by ELN criteria or intermediate to very high risk by IPSS-R, respectively. High risk disease was also common in our control MN cohort, where 88.3% of AML cases were intermediate or adverse risk by ELN criteria and 55.9% of MDS/CMML cases were intermediate to very high risk by IPSS-R.

Survival varied by subtype of HHA and MN (Figure 1). Survival was lowest for SCD (33.3% at 60-months) and highest for thalassemia traits (67.1% at 60 months). In HHA patients compared to controls, 60-month survival was 65.0% overall (vs 56.4%), 14.3% for AML (vs 23.8%), 51.0% for MDS/CMML (vs 43.9%), 90.5% in Ph- MPN (vs 80.6%), and 100% in Ph+ CML (vs 89.4%). Within the limitations of our sample size, survival differences were not statistically significant.

Conclusion: In this retrospective analysis, we observe younger age of diagnosis of myeloid malignancy for patients with HHAs compared to non-HHA controls. Inferior survival in SCD and thalassemia major is largely explained by a higher proportion of AML diagnoses in patients with SCD. AML and MDS/CMML diagnosed in HHA patients tended to be intermediate or high-risk disease, with survival similar to the non-HHA control population that was also enriched for higher risk patients. Validation of our findings in an expanded cohort of HHA patients is currently underway.