Biological importance of residual leukaemic cells after BMT for CML: does the polymerase chain reaction help?

The fate of the leukaemic clone after bone marrow transplantation (BMT) for patient's with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) may determine the long-term prognosis. Several groups have reported the use of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a highly sensitive technique for detecting residual leukaemia, to study blood and bone marrow of patients in apparent cytogenetic and clinical remission at various intervals after BMT