Quantification of Fusion Transcript Reveals a Subgroup with Distinct Biological Properties and Predicts Relapse in BCR/ABL-positive ALL: Implications for Residual Disease Monitoring

Minimal residual disease (MRD) monitoring is an essential tool for risk group stratification in current treatment protocols for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). Although quantitative detection of clonal immunoglobulin (Ig) and T-cell receptor (TCR) gene rearrangements is currently considered to be the standard method, leukaemia fusion genes provide other possible targets for MRD follow-up, as already demonstrated in TEL/AML1-positive ALLs. We analysed and compared MRD levels quantified by BCR/ABL transcript detection and by the standard Ig/TCR-based method in 218 bone marrow specimens from 17 children with BCR/ABL-positive ALL. We found only a limited overall correlation of MRD levels as assessed by the two methods (correlation coefficient R(2)=0.64). The correlation varied among patients from excellent (R(2)=0.99) to very poor (R(2)=0.17). Despite identical sensitivity of the approaches, 20% of the samples were negative by the Ig/TCR approach whereas positive by the BCR/ABL method. We show that multilineage involvement is at least partly responsible for the discrepancy. Moreover, our data demonstrate that BCR/ABL monitoring enables better and earlier prediction of relapse compared to the standard Ig/TCR methodology. We conclude that BCR/ABL-based MRD monitoring of childhood ALL is a clinically relevant tool and should be performed in parallel with the standard Ig/TCR follow-up.