Decreased SFRP2 expression is associated with intermediate and poor karyotypes in de novo acute myeloid leukemia

Dysregulation of secreted frizzled-related protein 2 (SFRP2) has been found in various cancers. However, it is little known about the pattern of SFRP2 expression in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). This study was aimed to analyze the expression status of SFRP2 gene in AML patients and explore its clinical significance using real-time quantitative PCR (RQ-PCR). The level of SFRP2 expression significantly decreased in AML compared to controls (P<0.001). Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis revealed that an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.871 (P<0.001) or 0.902 (P<0.001) in discriminating all patients or cytogenetically normal (CN) patients from controls, respectively. Low level of SFRP2 expression was found more frequently in cytogenetically intermediate and poor groups (72% and 62%, respectively) than in favorable group (42%) (P<0.05). However, there was no significant difference in the rate of complete remission (CR) and overall survival between the groups with low SFRP2 and high expression (P>0.05). SFRP2 expression significantly increased after CR compared to initial diagnosis (P<0.05). These findings suggest that decreased SFRP2 expression is associated with intermediate/poor karyotypes in AML patients and detection of SFRP2 expression may be helpful to the diagnosis and disease monitoring in CN-AML.