Dr. Osman on KRAS Mutations in CMML

Afaf Osman, MD, of the University of Utah, joins Blood Cancers Today to discuss a study on linking autoimmunity and KRAS mutations in patients with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML).

The case study included four patients with CMML who had RAS mutations, specifically KRAS mutations, and had a multitude of autoimmune diseases.

Dr. Osman and colleagues questioned whether there is a subset of patients with CMML who have RAS pathway mutations, autoimmune disease, and indolent courses, and whether these RAS mutations in autoimmunity and CMML are more associated with the female sex.

The researchers observed that three patients had isolated KRAS mutations, and three patients were female. These trends will require verification across large datasets of patients with CMML from multiple centers due to CMML being a rare disease, Dr. Osman noted.

“We think this is an interesting observation in this disease group,” she said. “This is important for patients with CMML because we need to make sure that we’re profiling these patients in terms of their genomic alterations and including RAS pathway mutations in the genetic profiling of these patients.”