Immunoglobulin and T cell receptor gene high-throughput sequencing quantifies minimal residual disease in acute lymphoblastic leukemia and predicts post-transplantation relapse and survival.

Minimal residual disease (MRD) quantification is an important predictor of outcome after treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Bone marrow ALL burden ≥ 10(-4) after induction predicts subsequent relapse. Likewise, MRD ≥ 10(-4) in bone marrow before initiation of conditioning for allogeneic (allo) hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) predicts transplantation failure.

Detection of Clostridium difficile toxin: comparison of enzyme immunoassay results with results obtained by cytotoxicity assay.

Several kinds of laboratory techniques are available to detect Clostridium difficile toxin in fecal samples. Because questions have been raised about the reliability of immunoassays compared to the accepted standard, cytotoxicity assay, we studied three enzyme immunoassays (EIAs) and one rapid EIA, which demonstrated relatively good sensitivities and specificities compared to cytotoxicity assay.