Registry of Patients With Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPNs) in Taiwan -Taiwan MPN Working Group

Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are a group of clonal hematologic malignancies with great variation in reported patient life expectancy and are characterized by a relatively indolent course which can be complicated by thromboembolic events and transformation to acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

The MPNs in the 2016 World Health Organization (WHO) classification of myeloid neoplasms consist of polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), primary myelofibrosis (PMF) including prefibrotic/early stage and over fibrotic stage, chronic myeloid leukemia, other (rare) disorders such as chronic neutrophilic leukemia and chronic eosinophilic leukemia and MPN unclassifiable (MPN-U).

The prevalence and genetic characteristics of patients with MPNs in Taiwan are still unknown. Molecular tests which are required for the diagnosis of MPNs are not available in many hospitals which hamper the accurate diagnosis and subtype classification of MPNs. Moreover, the information of current therapeutic strategy for MPNs in most medical centers in Taiwan is also not available. The purpose of this MPN registry is to collect clinical data, molecular characteristics, treatment details and response to therapy, occurrence of complications during the course, disease progression to secondary myelofibrosis from PV or ET and secondary AML (sAML) transformation as well as survival. The clinical and molecular data including the high molecular risk (HMR) genes will be examined and correlated with treatment outcomes in Taiwanese MPN patients.

The Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital-Linkou is a College of American Pathologists (CAP)-accredited lab which provides high quality of molecular genetic tests for hematologic malignancies. The three driver gene mutations are the major criteria for the diagnosis of MPN, the methodologies of mutational analyses have been well set up for the clinical use in this lab. In addition, this lab is also equipped with facilities for the detection of mutated genes which were recently identified as HRM category (presence of any of ASXL1, EZH2, SRSF2, IDH1 or IDH2), and mutations of other epigenetic regulators or splicing factors.