Clinical significance of quantitative monitoring and mutational analysis of BCR-ABL1 transcript in Philadelphia chromosome positive B lymphoblastic leukemia.

Quantitative detection of BCR-ABL1 transcript is essential in monitoring residual disease of Philadelphia chromosome positive B lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ B-LL). We studied the kinetics of BCR-ABL1 transcript in 41 Ph+ B-LL patients in correlation with their clinical outcome. A total of 23 patients achieved complete molecular remission at 6 months post-treatment.

Performance characteristics of the MultiCode-RTx hepatitis C virus load test targeting the 3' untranslated region.

Viral load testing for hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA has become a key parameter in the diagnosis of infection and treatment monitoring. This study evaluated the performance characteristics of the MultiCode-RTx HCV assay (MultiCode; EraGen Biosciences, Inc., Madison, WI), a real-time PCR test targeting the 3' untranslated region (UTR) of the HCV genome, compared to the TaqMan HCV load ASR assay (TaqMan; Roche Diagnostics, Indianapolis, IN) that targets the 5' UTR.