Philadelphia-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients already harbor BCR-ABL kinase domain mutations at low levels at the time of diagnosis

Abstract

Our results suggest that the BCR-ABL kinase domain is prone to randomly accumulate point mutations in Philadelphia-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia, although the presence of these mutations in a relatively small leukemic subclone does not always preclude a primary response to tyrosine kinase inhibitors.