Young people with acute lymphoblastic leukemia are at higher risk of developing pancreatitis if they are in an older age group, had high exposure to asparaginase, or of Native American ancestry, according to a genome-wide association study involving nearly 5,400 children and young adults.

5,185 participants had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and 117 of them had at least 1 episode of acute pancreatitis during therapy. Investigators looked at risk factors for asparaginase-induced pancreatitis in this group, as well as an independent case-control contingent of 213 patients. Among the results:

• No common variants reached genome-wide significance, but a rare variant rs199695765 in CPA2, encoding carboxypeptidase A2, was linked with pancreatitis.

• Gene-level analysis showed excess CPA2 variants in patients who developed pancreatitis vs those who did not.

• 16 CPA2 single-nucleotide polymorphisms were linked with pancreatitis.

• 13 of 24 patients who carried at least 1 of these variants developed pancreatitis.

Citation: Liu C, Yang W, Devidas M, et al. Clinical and genetic risk factors for acute pancreatitis in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. [Published online ahead of print April 25, 2016]. J Clin Oncol. doi:10.1200/JCO.2015.64.5812.