CD99 expression is strongly associated with clinical outcome in children with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

Our study aimed to determine the expression pattern and clinical relevance of CD99 in paediatric B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (BCP-ALL). Our findings demonstrate that high expression levels of CD99 are mainly found in high-risk BCP-ALL, e.g. BCR-ABL1 and CRLF2Re/Hi , and that high CD99 mRNA levels are strongly associated with a high frequency of relapse, high proportion of positive for minimal residual disease at day 29 and poor overall survival in paediatric cohorts, which indicate that CD99 is a potential biomarker for BCP-ALL.