Comparison of JAK2V617F prevalence in African American and caucasian patients with myeloproliferative disease (MPD)

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18001 Background: Prevalence of JAK2V617F in patients with MPD has been mainly estimated from cohorts of Caucasians (CAUC). Little information is available from African Americans (AA) with MPD. The Washington DC VA Medical Center population has approximately 75% AA patients providing an opportunity to compare the frequency of JAK2 V617F between the two groups. Methods: DNA extracts from the peripheral blood neutrophils of 33 male MPD patients (15 AA, 18 CAUC) attending the Hematology clinic in the last 18 months were tested by using DNA sequencing for JAK2V617F Results: Overall, the prevalence of MPD in this predominantly male veteran population appears to be approximately fourfold greater among CAUC than in AA. Distribution of the MPD subtypes and the frequency of JAK2V617F are shown in Table 1. There was no difference in the proportion of JAK2 V617F in the individual subtypes of MPD between the AA and CAUC patients. When all MPD groups were combined, there was a trend for a higher proportion of AA patients to have JAK2V617F (p=.06). Conclusions: These results find no significant difference in the prevalence of JAK2V617F among the MPD subtypes between AA and CAUC patients in this cohort. The trend to a higher incidence of the mutation in the AA group when the subtypes were combined (60% vs. 27%) likely represents the higher but non-significant difference in the AA ET group (44% vs. 20%) and the smaller numbers of patients in the other subsets of both groups. Additional studies are needed to expand and validate these observations, which may have potentially important implications for treatment. No. of JAK2 V617F patients/total (%) African- American (n = 15) Caucasian (n = 18) Chi-square p value Polycythemia Vera 3/4 (75%) 1/2 (50%) – EssentialThrombocythemia 4/9 (44%) 3/15 (20%) NS Primary Myelofibrosis 2/2 (100%) 1/1 (100%) – Total 9/15 (60%) 5/18 (27%) 0.06 No significant financial relationships to disclose.