How to abide by the grammar rule: Don't start a sentence with Arabic number

But the sentence in the context below is set out with the Arabic number 452. It seems difficult to change the traditionally unpleasant starting:
452 out of these 605 patients (74.7%) were found to have at least one mutation...

Can it be improved? If so, how?

Context:

To evaluate the prognostic value of genetic mutations for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients, we examined the gene status for both fusion products such as AML1 (CBFα)-ETO, CBFβ-MYH11, PML-RARα and MLL rearrangement as a result of chromosomal translocations and mutations in genes including FLT3,C-KIT, N-RAS, NPM1, CEBPA, WT1, ASXL1, DNMT3A, MLL, IDH1, IDH2 and TET2in 1,185 AML patients. Clinical analysis was mainly carried out among 605 cases without recognizable karyotype abnormalities except for 11q23. 452 out of these 605 patients (74.7%) were found to have at least one mutation, and the relationship of gene mutations with clinical outcome was investigated. Notably, we revealed a correlation pattern among NPM1, DNMT3A, FLT3, IDH1, IDH2,CEBPA and TET2 mutations. Multivariate analysis identified DNMT3A and MLLmutations as independent factors predicting inferior overall survival (OS) and event free survival (EFS), while bi-allelic CEBPA mutations or NPM1 mutations without DNMT3A mutations conferred a better OS and EFS in either the whole group or among younger patients aged less than 60 years. The use of molecular markers allows us to subdivide the series of 605 cases into distinct prognostic groups with potential clinical relevance.