Transplant characteristics: minimal residual disease and impaired megakaryocytic colony growth as sensitive parameters for predicting relapse in acute myeloid leukemia.

Dose-escalation during induction and consolidation therapy of de novo AML, including myeloablative chemotherapy supported with autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation, continously improve outcome. Therefore, quality control of transplants is getting increasing interest. We studied leukapheresis products (LPs), consecutively collected during postremission treatment of 20 patients (pts) with de novo AML for minimal residual disease (MRD) by 5-parametric flow cytometry and for myelodysplasia (MDS)-associated alterations, within the non-leukemic hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs), by paired lineage-selected colony assays for colony-forming units-megakaryocytes (CFU-mega) and burst-granulocytes-monocytes colony-forming units (CFU) to evaluate the predictive value of these transplant-associated parameters on outcome.