Reticulated platelets as a marker of platelet recovery after allogeneic stem cell transplantation

Reticulated platelets (RP) are the youngest forms of platelets in blood and reflect the rate of bone marrow platelet production. In the present study, we used flow cytometric analysis to determine the percentage of RPs in patients undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplantation. We investigated 10 patients after transplantation from HLA identical siblings: five with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), four with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), and one patient with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Of the patients examined, four patients underwent allogeneic bone marrow transplantation and six patients underwent peripheral blood stem cell transplantation. It was observed that the initially reduced percentage of RPs (2.9 +/- 1.7%; mean +/- SD) was significantly higher (P = 0.0109) in all patients (13.6 +/- 6.4%) in the following 10-26 days. The RP percentage peak preceded the recovery of peripheral platelet count up to 45.6 x 10(9)/l on average by 3 days. We found no difference in RP% between the AML and CML patients but we did observe that in CML patients the RP percentage increased on average 7 days earlier than in AML patients. The elevated RP percentage reflects increased bone marrow regeneration and can be considered an additional marker of thrombopoietic recovery in the patients undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplantation.