Development of a new strategy for minimal residual disease monitoring in children with B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Despite modern regimen of chemotherapy, one-third of children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia relapse. Recent studies have shown that a high level of minimal residual disease (MRD) at the end of induction is associated with an increased risk of relapse. We have developed and validated a real-time PCR method (RQ-PCR) to quantify MRD. We monitored 57 patients using IgH and TCR (Vdelta2Ddelta3) genes rearrangements as PCR targets. RQ-PCR was performed with a primer and a TaqMan probe designed to consensus sequences in VH segments in combination with one allele specific oligonucleotide primer complementary to the junctionnal region. A sensitivity of 10(-4) was reached for 72% of the IgH alleles (n = 50) and for 54,5% of the Vdelta2Ddelta3 alleles (n = 22). We compared the results with those obtained by competitive PCR in 53 patients: no discordance between the two methods was observed. Seventeen patients were found positive (32%) and 27 negative (51%) with both techniques and 9 children (17%) were positive only with TaqMan technology. RQ-PCR is more sensitive and more specific than competitive PCR. We thus propose that RQ-PCR might be used in first intention for MRD analysis.