%0 Journal Article %J Br J Haematol %D 2001 %T Estimating the relapse stage in chronic myeloid leukaemia patients after allogeneic stem cell transplantation by the amount of BCR-ABL fusion transcripts detected using a new real-time polymerase chain reaction method %A Elmaagacli,A. H. %A Freist,A. %A Hahn,M. %A Opalka,B. %A Seeber,S. %A Schaefer,U. W. %A Beelen,D. W. %K *Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation %K Adolescent %K Adult %K Comparative Study %K Cytogenetic Analysis %K Female %K Fusion Proteins, bcr-abl / *genetics %K Humans %K In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence %K Leukemia, Myeloid, Chronic / *diagnosis / *surgery %K Male %K Middle Aged %K Polymerase Chain Reaction / methods %K Recurrence %K Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't %K Transplantation, Homologous %X We have used a new single-step real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method to quantify BCR-ABL transcripts, thereby estimating the relapse stage in chronic myeloid leukaemia patients after allogeneic transplants. In 402 samples from 172 patients, BCR-ABL expression was determined and normalized, using the GAPDH housekeeping gene product as an endogenous reference. In our real-time RT-PCR assay, serial dilutions of RNA of the K562 cell line remained positive down to 7.5 pg. The median normalized BCR-ABL amount differed significantly (P < 0.001) between the various disease stages and was 0.06% (range 0.001-1.55%), 3.2% (range 1.4-5.6%) and 21.5% (range 6.8 -827%) in 17 patients with a molecular relapse, in eight patients with a cytogenetic relapse and in 10 patients with a haematological relapse respectively. %B Br J Haematol %V 113 %P 1072 - 5 %8 Jun %N 4 %M 11442504