High expression of Musashi-2 indicates poor prognosis in adult B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Musashi-2 (MSI2) expression of 116 adult B-cells acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) patients was measured by real-time PCR. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with high MSI2 expression had inferior overall survival (OS) (P = 0.004), event free survival (EFS) (P = 0.001) and relapse free survival (RFS) (P = 0.018) in BCR-ABL-negative B-ALL. Multivariate models revealed that, besides WBC more than 30 × 109/L and IK6 variant of IKZF1, high MSI2 expression was also an independent prognostic factor for adult BCR-ABL-negative B-ALL. Our data suggest that high MSI2 expression could indicate poor prognosis and facilitate risk and treatment stratification in adult BCR-ABL-negative B-ALL.