A Dose of Haematology News #1 - Spinal DCE-MRI to Prognosticate AML
Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 9:23PM The article of the week that I am interested to discuss is from the National Taiwan University Hospital. It was a collaborative study from a group of Haemato-Oncologists and Radiologists. Previously, the main method of early prognostication in AML involves bone marrow examinations, either to detect early marrow reduction in disease load or the presenting cytogenetics.
The group's paper published in Blood last week highlighted their experience using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI to detect the degree of angiogenesis in bone marrow tissue. The reduction in angiogenesis can then be translated to favourable outcome. A total of 78 subjects were recruited, ranging from all FAB subgroups of AML, including M3. The investigators perform the a baseline and a post-induction MRI on the subjects' T11 and sacral spinal bodies.
A reduction in update correlates with favourable outcome independent of age and karyotypes.