An age-based, RNA expression paradigm for survival biomarker identification for pediatric neuroblastoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Abstract

Background Pediatric cancer survival rates overall have been improving, but neuroblastoma (NBL) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), two of the more prevalent pediatric cancers, remain particularly challenging. One issue not yet fully addressed is distinctions attributable to age of diagnosis. Methods In this report, we verified a survival difference based on diagnostic age for both pediatric NBL and pediatric ALL datasets, with younger patients surviving longer for both diseases. We identified several gene expression markers that correlated with age, along a continuum, and then used a series of age-independent survival metrics to filter these initial correlations. Results For pediatric NBL, we identified 2 genes that are expressed at a higher level in lower surviving patients with an older diagnostic age; and 4 genes that are expressed at a higher level in longer surviving patients with a younger diagnostic age. For pediatric ALL, we identified 3 genes expressed at a higher level in lower surviving patients with an older diagnostic age; and 17 genes expressed at a higher level in longer surviving patients with a younger diagnostic age. Conclusions This process implicated pan-chromosome effects for chromosomes 11 and 17 in NBL; and for the X chromosome in ALL. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12935-019-0790-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Survival patterns of childhood neuroblastoma: an analysis of clinical data from Southern-Eastern European countries

“…Age of NBL onset has long been considered a significant predictor of disease outcome (Diviney et al , 2019). Specifically, children <1.5 years of age are more likely to experience favorable prognosis, which might be explained by the distinct histological and biological profile of the disease during this age bracket in comparison to older children (Maris et al , 2007).…”

Neuroblastoma‐targeted nanoparticles and novel nanotechnology‐based treatment methods

“…According to recent studies, age and genomic abnormalities are two predisposing factors in NB development (Diviney, Chobrutskiy, Zaman, & Blanck, 2019). Numerous chromosomal mutations have been reported in both localized and metastatic NB, with the structural mutations being more common in metastatic tumors.…”