Safety and efficacy of stem cell mobilization under imatinib therapy

In order to investigate the safety and efficacy of stem cell mobilization in chronic myeloid leukemia patients under imatinib therapy we treated 10 such patients with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor. We observed that none of the patients developed progressive disease under this treatment. Instead, sufficient CD34+ apheresis could be performed in 7 patients and, as assessed by nested reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), bcr/abl-negative stem cell products could be generated in 3 patients. Interestingly, in 3 other patients with bcr/abl-positivity in 1st round RT-PCR of peripheral leukocytes, bcr/abl transcripts in stem cell products could only be detected by nested RT-PCR.