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Chimerism interpretation with a highly sensitive quantitative PCR method: 6 months median latency before chimerism drop below 0.1%

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 51, pages 874–875 (2016)Cite this article

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Despite better results with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) over the years, high rates of relapse, which in acute leukemia can reach 30–70% of cases, remain a major challenge.1, 2 The treatment of relapse has better outcomes if performed early. Studies show that the detection of mixed chimera after transplantation can predict for relapse in most cases and it may allow for earlier appropriate treatment, with higher chances of success.3-55

A variety of techniques has been developed to determine post-transplant chimerism. The use of PCR-based amplification of STRs has become the gold standard for quantitative chimerism analysis but, although the high informativity and good accuracy of the method, its sensitivity is relatively low and the detection level of a minor genotype is between 0.4 and 5%.6, 7, 8, 9 Some studies have proposed RQ–PCR-based methods that allow for the detection and quantification of hematopoietic chimerism, with sensitivities ⩽0.1% of the minor genotypes.10

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank São Paulo Research Foundation for funding this research and the Laboratory of Molecular Analysis of Polymorphism of the University of Campinas for providing the DNA samples.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. HEMOCENTRO, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil

    D C Vicente, E C M Miranda & C A de Souza

  2. Centro Integrado de Pesquisas Oncohematológicas na Infância (CIPOI), University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil

    A B A Laranjeira

  3. Department of Medical Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil

    J A Yunes

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  1. D C Vicente
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Correspondence to D C Vicente.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Supplementary Information accompanies this paper on Bone Marrow Transplantation website

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Vicente, D., Laranjeira, A., Miranda, E. et al. Chimerism interpretation with a highly sensitive quantitative PCR method: 6 months median latency before chimerism drop below 0.1%. Bone Marrow Transplant 51, 874–875 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/bmt.2016.5

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