title: Minimal residual disease in bone marrow transplant recipients with chronic myeloid leukemia.
abstract: Bone marrow samples of 70 transplant recipients with CML were studied by Southern blot analysis and RT-PCR using a two-step procedure with nested primers. Twenty-two patients were studied once and 48 were assessed on multiple occasions. All patients remained in a hematological remission during the study. The time of follow-up after the transplant ranged from 2 to 144 months with a median of 42 months. Thirty-nine patients (56%) were negative by RT-PCR and Southern blot studies at the time of their last evaluation. The proportion of RT-PCR negative patients increased with the duration of follow-up after the transplant; 36% of patients were RT-PCR negative after 1 year compared with 60% after 2 years and 78% after > or = 5 years. Patients maintained on immunosuppression had a higher probability of remaining RT-PCR positive. Age, sex, time from diagnosis to BMT, as well as acute and chronic GVHD did not influence the RT-PCR status. The majority of patients studied on multiple occasions demonstrated a stable RT-PCR and Southern blot pattern. Some showed uni- or multi-directional transitions. However, none of the patients studied progressed to a hematological relapse. RT-PCR studies on colonies grown from RT-PCR positive. Southern blot negative patients confirmed that some of the clonogenic progenitors are able to produce BCR/ABL transcripts.
authors.affiliation: Ontario Cancer Institute, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: W M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: X H
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Piao
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Addy
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jamal
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Minden
authors.forename: H A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Messner
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001483:Base Sequence; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D016044:Fusion Proteins, bcr-abl / Q000235:genetics; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells; D006801:Humans; D015464:Leukemia, Myelogenous, Chronic, BCR-ABL Positive / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018365:Neoplasm, Residual; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger; D016044:Fusion Proteins, bcr-abl