Effect of initial absolute monocyte count on survival outcome of patients with de novo non-M3 acute myeloid leukemia.

Increased absolute monocyte count (AMC) at presentation has recently been associated with clinical outcome in different types of hematological malignancies. This study aimed to assess the prognostic value of AMC on survival in 193 adult patients with de novo non-M3 acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The median AMC for all patients at diagnosis was 0.26 × 10(9)/L, with 41.4, 31.1 and 27.5% of patients showed low (<0.12 × 10(9)/L), normal (0.12-0.80 × 10(9)/L), and high AMC (>0.80 × 10(9)/L), respectively. Univariate analysis revealed that high AMC appeared as a poor prognostic factor for overall survival (OS) (p = 0.0055), but not for disease free survival (DFS) (p = 0.1195). On multivariate analysis, initial high AMC remained an independent predictor of OS (hazard ratio 2.01, p = 0.017). Our results suggest that AMC at diagnosis, which provides additional prognostic information independently from conventional factors related to patient clinical characteristics or tumor biological features, could be a novel prognostic marker for AML.