Metaphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in the follow-up of 60 patients with haemopoietic malignancies.
Metaphase DNA fluorescence in situ hybridization (metaphase-FISH) was performed on follow-up samples from 60 patients suffering from haemopoietic malignancies (acute and chronic myeloid leukaemia, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and myelodysplastic syndrome). All patients had clonal chromosomal trisomies or translocations at diagnosis, and were treated by bone marrow transplantation (BMT), chemotherapy (CT) or interferon-alpha therapy. Metaphase-FISH was performed during therapy-induced complete haematological remission (CR) (BMT and CT patients) using biotin-labelled whole chromosome paint probes. 28% of all patients in CR were shown by FISH to have abnormal metaphase cells, and 62% of this group suffered a clinical relapse. Of those with negative FISH results (72%), 12% relapsed. In three CML patients treated with BMT a small population of t(9;22)-positive cells was demonstrated. These cells disappeared during follow-up without causing a relapse. One ALL patient had abnormal cells a short time after start of therapy but was also later found FISH-negative. Furthermore, we demonstrated that metaphase-FISH is a suitable method for quantifying the proportion of abnormal cells in CML patients during interferon-alpha therapy. Metaphase-FISH was also employed to detect a local relapse in an ALL patient. Thus, metaphase-FISH was found reliable and sensitive for detection of minimal residual disease in patients with haemopoietic malignancies.
Nylund
S J
SJ
Department of Medical Genetics, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Ruutu
T
T
Saarinen
U
U
Knuutila
S
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000753:Anemia, Refractory / Q000235:genetics* / Q000628:therapy; D002648:Child; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D017404:In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence; D007938:Leukemia / Q000235:genetics* / Q000628:therapy; D008228:Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin / Q000235:genetics* / Q000628:therapy; D008297:Male; D008677:Metaphase; D008875:Middle Aged; D018365:Neoplasm, Residual; D012074:Remission Induction; D014178:Translocation, Genetic; D014314:Trisomy