NoBlood

Blood, 15 November 2003, Vol. 102, No. 10, pp. 3569-3574.
Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on July 31, 2003; DOI 10.1182/blood-2003-03-0919.


HEMATOPOIESIS

Quantification of PRV-1 mRNA distinguishes polycythemia vera from secondary erythrocytosis

Steffen Klippel, Elisabeth Strunck, Snezana Temerinac, Anthony J. Bench, Gerold Meinhardt, Ursula Mohr, Rosi Leichtle, Anthony R. Green, Martin Griesshammer, Hermann Heimpel and Heike L. Pahl

From the Department of Experimental Anaesthesiology, University Hospital Freiburg, Center for Clinical Research, Freiburg, Germany; the Department of Hematology/Oncology, Klinikum Innenstadt, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, München, Germany; the Department of Hematology/Oncology, University Hospital Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; the Department of Hematology and Oncology, University Hospital Ulm, Ulm, Germany; and the Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

To date, the diagnosis of polycythemia vera (PV) relies on clinical criteria. We have recently described the overexpression of a hematopoietic receptor, polycythemia rubra vera-1 (PRV-1), in patients with PV. Here, we report a quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay for the measurement of PRV-1 mRNA levels. We have determined PRV-1 expression in 71 patients with PV, 11 patients with secondary erythrocytosis (SE), as well as in 80 healthy controls. PV patients express significantly higher amounts of PRV-1 than healthy controls or patients with SE (P < .0001). Because there is no overlap between the PRV-1 expression in PV patients versus healthy controls or SE patients, the assay has a very high sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of PV in our population. In patients with erythrocytosis, the quantitative RT-PCR assay described here therefore provides a rapid, highly specific and sensitive tool for the diagnosis of PV. (Blood. 2003;102: 3569-3574)

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