%0 Journal Article
%T Clinical, immunological, and genetic features in 780 patients with autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome (ALPS) and ALPS-like diseases: A systematic review.
%A Hafezi N
%A Zaki-Dizaji M
%A Nirouei M
%A Asadi G
%A Sharifinejad N
%A Jamee M
%A Erfan Rasouli S
%A Hamedifar H
%A Sabzevari A
%A Chavoshzadeh Z
%A Yazdani R
%A Abolhassani H
%A Aghamohammadi A
%A Azizi G
%J Pediatr Allergy Immunol
%V 32
%N 7
%D 10 2021
%M 33963613
%F 5.464
%R 10.1111/pai.13535
%X Autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome (ALPS) is a group of genetic disorders characterized by early-onset lymphoproliferation, autoimmune cytopenias, and susceptibility to lymphoma. The majority of ALPS patients carry heterozygous germline mutations in the TNFRSF6 gene. In this study, we conducted a systematic review of patients with ALPS and ALPS-like syndrome.
The literature search was performed in Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed databases to find eligible studies. Additionally, the reference list of all included papers was hand-searched for additional studies. Demographic, clinical, immunological, and molecular data were extracted and compared between the ALPS and ALPS-like syndrome.
Totally, 720 patients with ALPS (532 genetically determined and 189 genetically undetermined ALPS) and 59 cases with ALPS-like phenotype due to mutations in genes other than ALPS genes were assessed. In both ALPS and ALPS-like patients, splenomegaly was the most common clinical presentation followed by autoimmune cytopenias and lymphadenopathy. Among other clinical manifestations, respiratory tract infections were significantly higher in ALPS-like patients than ALPS. The immunological analysis showed a lower serum level of IgA, IgG, and lymphocyte count in ALPS-like patients compared to ALPS. Most (85%) of the ALPS and ALPS-like cases with determined genetic defects carry mutations in the FAS gene. About one-third of patients received immunosuppressive therapy with conventional or targeted immunotherapy agents. A small fraction of patients (3.3%) received hematopoietic stem cell transplantation with successful engraftment, and all except two patients survived after transplantation.
Our results showed that the FAS gene with 85% frequency is the main etiological cause of genetically diagnosed patients with ALPS phenotype; therefore, the genetic defect of the majority of suspected ALPS patients could be confirmed by mutation analysis of FAS gene.