Case Report: Multi-Omics Analysis and CAR-T Treatment of a Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Blast Crisis Case 5 Years After the Discontinuation of TKI

Most relapsed chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients after tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) discontinuation are in a chronic phase and could achieve remission through restarting the TKI treatment. Here we reported a case of sudden lymphoid blast crisis after 67 months of TKI discontinuation and depicted the patient by DNA and RNA sequencing to investigate intrinsic molecular features. The mutations of TGFBR2 and PCNT and the dysregulations of TGF-beta and other pathways might accelerate the B cell transformation, which may serve as a blast crisis risk indicator of CML. Single-cell transcriptome data revealed that several clusters of immature B cells and late pro-B cells presented clone evolution during the treatment. After failing multiple lines of TKIs, conditioning chemotherapies and chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) targeting CD19 and CD22 were performed to achieve remission. In conclusion, we report the first case of a CML patient with sudden lymphoid blast crisis after a long treatment-free remission and additional gene abnormalities other than BCR-ABL1 might participate in the progression, which need to be closely monitored, and CAR-T could be a solution to the chemoresistant progression.

Automated summary

In this study, a CML patient experienced a sudden lymphoid blast crisis after a long treatment-free remission. Mutations in TGFBR2 and PCNT were identified as potentially accelerating B cell transformation, and single-cell transcriptome data revealed clone evolution. The patient achieved remission through CAR-T therapy after failing multiple lines of treatment.