Impact of clinical utility of MRD assessment with different techniques on survival in acute B lymphoblastic leukemia

Abstract

We investigated the impact of minimal residual disease (MRD) obtained from different approaches on the outcomes of 141 B lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) patients. Among 169 samples with more than 5% blasts by morphology, 3.6% (6/169) were Flow-MRD negative. Of the 212 positive molecular-MRD samples from Ph+ ALL patients, 55 (25.9%) were Flow-MRD negative. Before consolidation or allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), negative Flow-MRD was associated with improved survival (p = .019 and .041, respectively) for Ph− ALL patients, but not for Ph+ ALL (p = .111 and .812, respectively). There was no difference in overall survival (OS) by achievement of complete molecular response at complete remission (CR, p = .333 and .863, respectively). Our results indicated that the results of MRDs detected with different methods varied. Flow-MRD can be used as a reliable prognostic marker for Ph− ALL patients. MRD either by flow cytometry or quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) at CR did not affect OS or DFS for Ph+ ALL.

Keywords:

• Minimal residual disease
• B acute lymphoblastic leukemia
• multiparametric flow cytometry (MPFC)
• prognosis

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC; 81270567, 81470321, 81400133). Xiaoxia Hu was sponsored by Young Scholarship from Shanghai Health Bureau (XYQ2011007).

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10428194.2017.1369072.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [grant no. 81270567, 81470321] and National Science Foundation for Young Scientists [grant no. 81400133]. Xiaoxia Hu was sponsored by Young Scholarship from Shanghai Health Bureau of China [Cultivation plan number XYQ2011007].