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Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is characterized by the chromosomal translocation t(15;17) and fusion transcripts of the RARA and PML genes. APL is highly curable with therapy that incorporates all-trans retinoic acid and anthracyclines, and relapsed patients often achieve second remissions with arsenic trioxide therapy.
To identify patients who are likely to experience relapse, researchers prospectively evaluated the use of a real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RQ-PCR) assay to detect minimal residual disease (MRD) in newly diagnosed APL patients who were treated with all-trans retinoic acid and anthracycline-based chemotherapy. The investigators used the assay to identify leukemia-specific transcripts in paired peripheral …