Older patients with normal karyotype acute myeloid leukemia have a higher rate of genomic changes compared to young patients as determined by SNP array analysis

Older patients with AML have a worse outcome compared to young patients. To study for potential contributors to their poor prognosis, we compared two NK-AML cohorts, young (<60 years old) and old (≥60 years old), via high density SNP array analysis. Older patients had more genomic changes (1.83 ± 0.23 vs. 1.16 ± 0.2, p = 0.037) and a trend for a higher number of copy number neutral loss of heterozygosity (0.5 ± 0.2 vs. 0.24 ± 0.08, p = 0.088) compared to young patients. We speculate that complex genomic changes in NK-AML may be a sign of an increase in genomic instability and an indicator of a worse prognosis.