Background

Current treatment protocols of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) are based on:

• Age
• WBC count
• Immunophenotypic profiles
• Specific chromosomal abnormalities
• Aberrant fusion genes
• Mutations

However small amounts of leukemic cells could remain in patients during or after treatment. This Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) is the major cause of relapse in leukemia.

Benefits

This technology is a standardized, optimized and qualified quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (RQ-PCR) method for mrd detection in CML patients through the amplification of a fusion gene transcript:

• fusion genes: BCR-ABL m-bcr and BCR-ABL M-bcr
• BCR-ABL RQ-PCR nucleic acid set made up with a nucleotidic probe (1 sequence) + forward and reverse primers (3 sequences)

This probe is:

• easy to use
• cost-effective
• sensitive
• robust: the method has been developed via the "Europe Against Cancer" program and itis already widely used in laboratories.

Applications

Use in CML diagnostic: BCR-ABL fusion gene detection

Use in disease monitoring and an objective evaluation of the response to any treatment:

• therapeutic strategies will be adapted during treatment according to standardized MRD evaluations
• such biological data will assess therapeutic efficiency