Morphological Subtype According to the FAB Classification Correlates with Molecular Subtype Using Genomic Risk Classification Based on Somatic Mutation Profiles in Normal Karyotype AML

Background: in the 1970s, French-American-British (FAB) classification had been proposed and had been used for the classification of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) until cytogenetic risk classification was introduced. The FAB classification was based largely on morphologic features of leukemic blasts, and was useful to group AML. Morphology of leukemic blast is an endproduct of genetic changes in DNA/RNA levels in leukemic cells. Thus it is plausible that morphologic subtype can correlates with genetic changes in AML. The present study attempted to explore whether a specific somatic mutation correlates with morphologic subtype classified according to the FAB classification using mutation profile data by targeted deep sequencing in normal karyotype (NK) AML.