The prognostic role of CXCR3 expression by chronic lymphocytic leukemia B cells

Abstract

CXCR3, measured as mean fluorescence intensity (MFI), was unimodally expressed by blood tumor cells at various levels (range, 3.5 to 232.3) but levels within individual patients were remarkably stable over time. Low CXCR3 expression by CLL B cells was strongly associated with Rai disease stages III and IV (p<0.0001) and a pattern of diffuse tumor infiltration of the bone marrow (p<0.0001). In the 28 cases available for genetic studies, low CXCR3 expression also showed good concordance with tumor unmutated IgVH gene status (p<0.04), and tended to correlate with high CD38 expression (p<0.06). Patients with low CXCR3 expression (MFI < or =15) had a shorter survival (p<0.0001) and, in multivariate analysis, low CXCR3 expression (MFI pound15) was an independent predictor of poor outcome (hazard ratio 24.5; p<0.01). INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONSL: CXCR3 expression by CLL B cells appears to be stable within individual patients. Tests to assay this chemokine receptor are cheap and easy to perform and the results could be of prognostic value in CLL.