title: Monitoring of chimerism following allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT): technical recommendations for the use of short tandem repeat (STR) based techniques, on behalf of the United Kingdom National External Quality Assessment Service for Leucocyte Immunophenotyping Chimerism Working Group.
abstract: Analysis of short tandem repeats (STR) is the predominant method for post-transplant monitoring of donor engraftment. It can enable early detection of disease relapse, level of engraftment and provide useful information on the graft-versus-host disease (GVHD)/graft-versus-tumour (GVT) effect, facilitating therapeutic intervention. Harmonization and standardization of techniques and result interpretation is essential to reduce the impact of laboratory variability on both clinical management and the results of multi-centre clinical trials. However, the United Kingdom National External Quality Assessment Service for Leucocyte Immunophenotyping (UK NEQAS LI) has highlighted significant issues inherent in STR testing that impact upon inter- and intra- laboratory variation. We present here consensus best practice guidelines and recommendations for STR chimerism testing, data interpretation and reporting that have been drawn up and agreed by a consortium of 11 UK and Eire clinical laboratories. This document uses data obtained from the UK NEQAS LI Post-Stem Cell Transplant (SCT) Chimerism Monitoring Programme.
authors.affiliation: UK NEQAS for Leucocyte Immunophenotyping, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Jordan R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.forename: Stuart D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.forename: Andrea L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Jack
authors.forename: Helena
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Joanne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mason
authors.forename: Geoffrey I
authors.initials: GI
authors.lastname: Carter
authors.forename: Laurence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pearce
authors.forename: Tony
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: Hazel
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Clouston
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sproul
authors.forename: Leigh
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Keen
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Molloy
authors.forename: Najeem'deen
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Folarin
authors.forename: Liam
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Whitby
authors.forename: John A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Snowden
authors.forename: John T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Reilly
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Barnett
mesh_terms: D046528:Chimerism; D005820:Genetic Testing / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D018183:Transplantation Chimera / Q000235:genetics; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous; D057832:Watchful Waiting
keywords: allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation; chimerism; guidelines; short tandem repeats