Stem cell transplantation in poor-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia: assessment of post-transplant minimal residual disease using four- and six-color flow cytometry and allele-specific RQ-PCR.

A total of 178 bone marrow samples were taken for minimal residual disease (MRD) analysis after 34 stem cell transplantations for poor-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and 86 of them were analyzed in parallel by flow cytometry and allele-specific oligonucleotide-PCR (ASO-PCR). ASO primer was successfully designed for all patients whose frozen diagnosis samples were available. Flow cytometry and ASO-PCR were concordant, i.