JAK2V617F detection and allele burden measurement in saliva vs. peripheral blood in patients with myelofibrosis

We previously demonstrated that peripheral blood (PB) is a reliable source for testing JAK2(V617F) mutation in patients with myelofibrosis (MF); saliva has also been tested to detect such mutation, however its diagnostic accuracy as compared to PB has not been validated. In this study, we prospectively tested 167 patients with MF for JAK2V617F mutation, using both saliva and PB collected at the same time from each patient. The concordance between the 2 sources was 96%, with a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 90%. The only factor associated with false positivity on saliva was ongoing transfusion dependency. JAK2(V617F) testing using saliva is a simple, non-invasive, and potentially a more reliable method than PB for measuring JAK2 status and assessing V617F allelic burden in patients with transfusion dependency.