title: Low incidence of molecular evidence for tumour in PBPC harvests from patients with high risk Ewing tumours.
abstract: Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was applied to evaluate the frequency of tumour cells in PBPC products from 15 high risk Ewing tumour (ET) patients who were treated according to EICESS 92 with high-dose chemotherapy (HDC) and stem cell rescue. Initial tumour cell contamination of the bone marrow (BM) detected by light microscopy was found in five and by RT-PCR in eight cases. RT-PCR was performed on each PBPC sample repeatedly at a sensitivity comparable to 20-100 highly EWS-Fli1 expressing tumour cells per 10 ml of fresh blood. Irrespective of the extent of BM involvement at diagnosis, all BM samples obtained before harvest were RT-PCR negative. Among 12 of 35 analysed apheresis products with single positive RT-PCR results only one sample tested reproducibly positive for tumour cell contamination in independent determinations. These preliminary data suggest that tumour cell contamination of PBPC is rarely found in patients with ET.
authors.affiliation: St Anna Children's Hospital and Children's Cancer Research Institute, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fischmeister
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zoubek
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jugovic
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Witt
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ladenstein
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fritsch
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Höcker
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gadner
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kovar
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001781:Blood Component Removal; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells / Q000473:pathology*; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D018365:Neoplasm, Residual / Q000473:pathology*; D015514:Oncogene Proteins, Fusion / Q000235:genetics; D051789:Proto-Oncogene Protein c-fli-1; D034802:RNA-Binding Protein EWS; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D012512:Sarcoma, Ewing / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: C106031:EWS-FLI fusion protein; D015514:Oncogene Proteins, Fusion; D051789:Proto-Oncogene Protein c-fli-1; D034802:RNA-Binding Protein EWS; D014157:Transcription Factors