Abstract
Even after microscopic remission after induction therapy, however, in this more than billions of leukemic cells potentially are supposed to escape this microscopic detection. In recent years, technological progress has enabled us to detect residual leukemic cells, which cannot be detected only by means of conventional assessment using microscopic morphology. These residual cells in microscopic remission are “minimal residual diseases (MRD)”. PCR and flow cytometry (FCM) are two major methods to detect MRD, and these methods had several advantages/disadvantages. PCR-MRD can detect as low as 0.001% of residual leukemic cells, while the sensitivity of FCM-MRD is 0.01%. On the other hand, FCM-MRD has advantages in terms of simple preparation methods, short duration to obtain results, cheaper cost, and broad applicability. Irrespective of MRD detection methods, time points to be assessed, and threshold, potent impacts on prognosis have been confirmed by numerous clinical studies. MRD assessment is essential to stratify patients according to relapse risk.
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Kato, M. (2020). MRD in Pediatric ALL. In: Kato, M. (eds) Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0548-5_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0548-5_5
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