Mixed Phenotype/Lineage Leukemia: Has Anything Changed for 2021 on Diagnosis, Classification, and Treatment?

Recent advances in the small field of the rare mixed phenotype acute leukemias (MPAL) are presented focusing on a better understanding of their pathophysiology and search for better therapeutic approaches.

Three aspects of respective classification, therapy, and immunophenotype of MPAL are reviewed. New proposals have been made to segregate MPAL subtypes based on their genomic landscape. In parallel, it was found that a large array of therapeutic approaches has been tested in the past few years with increasingly good results. Finally, we explored the use of unsupervised flow cytometry analysis to dissect subtle variations in markers expression to better characterize the variegating aspect of MPALs. Genomic and immunophenotypic aspects more clearly link MPAL subtypes with bona fide acute myeloblastic of lymphoblastic leukemias. This is likely to impact therapeutic strategies, towards a better management and outcome.