By using rapid flow cytometric techniques capable of detecting one leukemic cell in 104 normal cells, we prospectively studied minimal residual disease (MRD) in 195 children with newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in clinical remission. Bone marrow aspirates (n 5 629) were collected at the end of remission induction therapy and at 3 intervals thereafter. Detectable MRD (ie, >0.0...

The high complete remission rate with first-line combined fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab (FCR) begs the question of the value of minimal residual disease (MRD)-negative status as a treatment end point. We report on 237 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who received first-line FCR. MRD was prospectively assessed by 4-color flow cytometry in bone marrow after course 3 and a...

Early response to therapy is an independent prognostic factor in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Although most patients have rapid early responses, as detected by morphology, 15% to 20% of patients have relapses. The authors evaluated residual disease by molecular methods on day 15 of minimal residual disease (MRD) therapy and compared these data with their recently established MRD-base...

We used flow cytometry to quantify minimal residual disease (MRD) in 56 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) expressing a leukemia-associated phenotype. Thirty-four patients aged 18 to 60 years were entered into the AML-10 protocol (induction, consolidation, and autologous stem-cell transplantation [ASCT]), whereas 22 patients older than 60 years received the AML-13 protocol (induction, c...

In this retrospective study, we evaluated the impact of pre- and posttransplant minimal residual disease (MRD) detected by multiparametric flow cytometry (MFC) on outcome in 160 patients with ALL who underwent myeloablative allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). MRD was defined as detection of abnormal B or T cells by MFC with no evidence of leukemia by morphology (<5% blasts in m...

BACKGROUND Progress in treatment of multiple myeloma extensively increased patient remission rates, so minimal residual disease (MRD) detection becomes essential to assess the effectivity of treatment and depth of complete response. Nowadays, multiparametric flow cytometry (MFC) is the most used method for monitoring of MRD presence in the bone marrow of multiple myeloma patients; however, dete...

Risk directed treatment forms a central component of modern protocols for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). A review of recent studies of minimal residual disease (MRD) analysis shows that it is a powerful prognostic factor in both first line and relapse treatment. However, the value of MRD analysis is both time point and protocol specific, and the threshold for MRD detection of th...

Monitoring minimal residual disease has become increasingly important in clinical practice of ALL management. Break-point fusion regions of leukaemia related chromosomal aberrations and rearranged immunoglobulin (Ig) and T cell-receptor (TCR) genes, which can be detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), are used as leukaemia specific markers in genetic studies of MRD. A total of 31 consecuti...