Abstract
It still remains unclear whether patients with mixed hematopoietic chimerism (MC) after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (allo-BMT) have an increased risk of developing relapse or graft failure. To address this question, we monitored the individual dynamics of chimerism after allo-BMT in pediatric patients within a prospective case control study. The individual ratio of donor to recipient peripheral white cells was determined by quantification of genomic variable number of tandem repeats (VNTRs) with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) approach. Within the study period from 1 January 1994 until 1 July 1996 we investigated 50 sequences of 46 pediatric patients after allo-BMT (32 with malignant, 18 with nonmalignant diseases). We found complete chimerism (CC) in 34/50 cases, MC in 12/50 follow-ups and 4/50 patients revealed autologous recovery (AC). Eight of 12 patients with MC showed increasing autologous patterns and subsequently relapsed or rejected their graft, 3/12 showed decreasing amounts of recipient DNA and turned to CC upon further follow-up. One patient of 12 who had severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), attained engraftment with a stable MC pattern. Three patients of 34 with CC relapsed lacking a transitional MC interval. However, the time span between last CC confirmation and relapse in each of these three patients was 6 months or longer. We suggest that these patients also developed a stage of transitional MC but that the critical timepoint of molecular confirmation by PCR was missed as time intervals in the individual follow-up of these three patients were too long (⩾6 months). In summary, the results demonstrate that the individual risk of developing relapse or graft failure is significantly enhanced in the MC situation (P < 0.0005). therefore the quantitative analysis of mc at short time intervals might be of great value to identify high risk patients which will have a significantly enhanced risk for relapse or graft rejection.
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Bader, P., Hölle, W., Klingebiel, T. et al. Mixed hematopoietic chimerism after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation: the impact of quantitative PCR analysis for prediction of relapse and graft rejection in children. Bone Marrow Transplant 19, 697–702 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1700721
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1700721
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