Evaluation of diagnostic efficacy of NRP ‐1/ CD304 in hematological diseases

Abstract Background Previous studies had explored the diagnostic or prognostic value of NRP‐1/CD304 in blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and B‐cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B‐ALL), whereas the expression and application value of NRP‐1/CD304 in other common hematological diseases have not been reported. Methods Bone marrow samples from 297 newly diagnosed patients with various hematological diseases were collected to detect the expression of NRP‐1/CD304 by flow cytometry (FCM). The diagnostic efficacy of NRP‐1/ CD304‐positive diseases was analyzed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was compared. Results In the research cohort, the total positive rate of NRP‐1/CD304 was 14.81% (44/297), mainly distributed in BPDCN (100%, 6/6), B‐ALL (48.61%, 35/72), and AML (4.48%, 3/67), with statistically significant differences ( p < 0.01). Other diseases, such as T‐cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T‐ALL), B‐cell non‐Hodgkin lymphoma (B‐NHL), T/NK‐cell lymphoma and plasma cell neoplasms, did not express NRP‐1/CD304. The AUC of NRP‐1/CD304 was 0.936 (95% CI 0.898–0.973), 0.723 (95% CI 0.646–0.801), and 0.435 (95% CI 0.435) in BPDCN, B‐ALL and AML, respectively. Besides, CD304 was commonly expressed in B‐ALL with BCR‐ABL1 gene rearrangement ( p = 0.000), and CD304 expression was positively correlated with CD34 co‐expression ( p = 0.009) and CD10 co‐expression ( p = 0.007). Conclusions NRP‐1/CD304 is only expressed in BPDCN, B‐ALL and AML, but not in other common hematological diseases. This indicates that NRP‐1/CD304 has no obvious diagnostic and follow‐up study value in hematological diseases other than BPDCN, B‐ALL, and AML.