Autoimmune diseases and myeloid hematological disorders: a possible pathogenetic relationship

Background: The association between autoimmune diseases (ADs) and lymphomas is well established; nonetheless, few studies have investigated the relationship between myeloid malignancies and ADs. In a series of more than 11,000 patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), a Swedish group reported that a prior history of AD was significantly associated with a higher risk of MPN. More recently, our group showed that in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) some genes correlated with AD (GLYPR1, PCARD, S100) were highly expressed at diagnosis and that the treatment with Imatinib impacted on the “inflammatory” profile of CML patients. Aim of the study: to investigate the frequency of myeloid malignancies, such as myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and chronic, either Philadelphia-positive (CML) or Philadelphia-negative (MPN), myeloproliferative disorders in patients with ADs, and to identify several distinctive clinical and biological features.