Clonal Hematopoiesis of Indeterminate Potential: Current Understanding and Future Directions

This article summarizes the current knowledge about clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP), its association with cardiovascular disease (CVD), and other outcomes, pathogenesis, postulated mechanisms of various pathologies, current knowledge gaps, possible targets of intervention, and therapeutic implications.Recent FindingsRecently, a common age-related hematological entity known as CHIP has been identified as the independent risk factor for CVD. CHIP is defined as the presence of clonally expanded blood cells involving leukemogenic mutations without the evidence of malignancy. CHIP is known to increase the inflammatory state which in turn is thought to be responsible for increased risk of CVD. Apart from CVD and malignancy, CHIP is also associated with pulmonary embolism, COPD, CKD, stroke, altered metabolism, obesity, liver disease, and increased all-cause mortality. At the same time surprisingly, CHIP is found to have positive outcomes in bone marrow transplant patients and similar reciprocal association with Alzheimer ’s disease.SummaryThe risk of CVD and cancer increases with the advancing age, and these two are the leading causes of death in the USA. CHIP is an independent risk factor for CVD development. Most patients with CHIP have somatic clonal mutations in epigenetic regulators, DNA repair genes, or regulatory tyrosine kinases without evidence of overt hematological malignancy. CHIP portends increased risk for leukemia development and carries twof...
Source: Current Oncology Reports - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research