Molecular quantification of residual disease in chronic myelogenous leukemia after bone marrow transplantation

Residual disease remains a major problem in the treatment of human neoplasia. To effectively monitor minimal leukemic activity after bone marrow transplantation (BMT), we used a competitive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification technique to quantify expression of the characteristic bcr-abl fusion message in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Quantitative results were obtained between the 0.001% and 0.1% level in control experiments. This represents a significant advantage over cytogenetic and Southern blotting techniques routinely used to diagnose CML, which may not be sensitive below the 1% level. To illustrate the potential clinical usefulness of the quantitative PCR strategy, we compared results of bcr-abl messenger RNA expression with those obtained using cytogenetic and Southern blotting techniques, in a study of consecutive BM and peripheral blood (PB) samples from two CML patients at high risk for relapse after BMT. One patient received a syngeneic transplant during the chronic phase of the disease and relapse was apparent at the molecular level 4.5 months after BMT, while the patient was in complete clinical remission. The second patient was treated with an allogeneic BMT during the accelerated phase of the disease. A slow, but progressive decrease in bcr-abl expression was observed during the first 12 months after BMT, and expression was undetectable thereafter. Our results indicate that the competitive PCR technique can be used to monitor disease activity in patients at high risk of relapse, while the patients are in complete clinical remission, which should facilitate the early detection of relapse or the identification of progressive disappearance of leukemic activity. The approach used may serve as a model for the study of residual disease in an increasing number of other hematologic malignancies that express cancer-specific RNAs.