High expression of miR‐338 is associated with poor prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia undergoing chemotherapy

Abstract Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease with unfavorable outcomes. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important regulators and prognostic factors involved in AML. To determine the clinical role of miR‐338 in AML, a total of 164 adults with de novo AML were collected. These patients were classified into a chemotherapy group and an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo‐HSCT) group according to the clinical treatment, and then each group was divided into two subgroups based on the median miR‐338 expression values. We found that upregulated miR‐338 positively correlates with higher frequencies of complex karyotype, RUNX1 mutation, and poor risk status. In the chemotherapy group, high expression of miR‐338 was independently associated with shorter EFS and OS. However, no significant differences were observed between the two subgroups within the allo‐HSCT group. We also divided all patients into two groups according to the median miR‐338 expression values of the whole cohort. In the miR‐338 high expression group, patients receiving allo‐HSCT had longer OS and EFS than those receiving chemotherapy only. In contrast, patients receiving different therapies had similar OS and EFS in the miR‐338 low expression group. Our study suggests that high expression of miR‐338 is an adverse prognostic biomarker in patients with AML undergoing chemotherapy and may guide treatment decisions for AML. Furthermore, allo‐HSCT could significantly overcome the negative effect of high miR‐338 expression, but it seemed to be unbeneficial and unnecessary for low miR‐338 expressions.