High expression of CD56 may be associated with favorable overall survival in intermediate-risk acute myeloid leukemia

Previous study (Br. J. Haematol. 2017; 176:498) reported that CD56 positive is associated with poor prognosis of patients with intermediate-risk acute myeloid leukemia (IR-AML). However, our data were inconsistent with the finding. Thus, in this study, we provided the different results to discuss.

A total of 262 bone marrow transcriptomic data of IR-AML in the GSE12417-GPL96 and GSE71014-GPL-10558 from the Gene Expression Omnibus database (GEO) database, and 92 IR-AML patients from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) database were obtained for prognostic analysis and validation.

Compared with low CD56 expression, IR-AML patients with high CD56 expression had a longer overall survival (OS) time and restricted mean survival time (RMST) and favorable OS rate in the GSE12417-GPL96 dataset. These results were confirmed in both GSE71014-GPL-10558 and TCGA datasets. Importantly, the inconsistency between our findings and the previous finding may be due to the following reasons: different detection methods, age stratification, countries, treatment options etc.

The prognostic value of CD56 expression in IR-AML may need to be comprehensively evaluated based on different detection methods, age stratification, countries, treatment options, and other factors. If confirmed, CD56 may be a biomarker for further risk stratification for IR-AML patients.