Should we consider early testing and treatment for driver mutations acquired in childhood?

During the 62nd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, the MPN Hub spoke to Jyoti Nangalia, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. We asked, Should we consider early testing and treatment for driver mutations acquired in childhood?

In this podcast, Jyoti Nangalia reports results from a study using next-generation sequencing to trace acquired MPN mutations in hematopoietic stem cells taken from patients with varying stages of disease presentation. Nangalia discusses unexpected results, such as the acquisition of key driver mutations (JAK2 and DNMT3A) very early in life. She also discusses results observing a variation in the growth rate of cancer cell clones between patients, as well as the correlation of growth rate with disease presentation. Nangalia concludes with possible future applications of these methods in the early detection and prevention of MPN.