Post-induction residual leukemia in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia quantified by PCR correlates with in vitro prednisolone resistance

Most prognostic factors in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are informative for groups of patients, whereas new approaches are needed to predict the efficacy of chemotherapy for the individual patient. The residual leukemia following 4 weeks of induction therapy with prednisolone, vincristine, doxorubicin and i.t. methotrexate and the in vitro resistance to prednisolone, vincristine, and doxorubicin were measured in 30 boys and 12 girls with B (n = 34) or T lineage (n = 8) ALL. The residual leukemia was quantified after 2 (MRD-D15, n = 29) and 4 weeks (MRD-PI, n = 42) of induction therapy with a precise and reproducible clone-specific PCR technique. The median MRD-D15 and MRD-PI were 0.50% (75% range 0.008-8.1%) and 0.014% (75% range 0.001-2.0%), respectively, and these levels correlated significantly (n = 29, r_s = 0.75, P < 0.001). Both the MRD-D15 and the MRD-PI were related to the age of the patient (MRD-D15: r_s = 0.48, P = 0.009; MRD-PI: r_s = 0.45, P = 0.003). Patients with T lineage ALL had higher MRD-PI than those with B lineage ALL (median MRD-PI: 0.5% vs 0.01%, P = 0.05). The median LC₅₀ (concentration lethal to 50% of cells) for prednisolone was 2.3 μg/ml (75% range 0.05-668). Both MRD-D15 and MRD-PI correlated significantly with the in vitro resistance to prednisolone (MRD-D15: r_s = 0.41, P = 0.03; MRD-PI: r_s = 0.39, P = 0.01); but not to in vitro vincristine or doxorubicin resistance. The correlations between MRD and in vitro prednisolone resistance were even more pronounced when B cell precursor and T cell leukemia were analyzed separately (B cell precursor ALL: MRD-PI vs prednisolone LC₅₀: n = 33, r_s = 0.47, P = 0.006; T cell ALL: MRD-PI vs prednisolone resistance: n = 8, r_s = 0.84, P = 0.009). After a median follow-up of 5.0 years (75% range 3.2-6.9) eight patients have relapsed. All of the 21 patients with a MRD-PI ≤0.5% and a prednisolone LC₅₀ ≤10 μg/ml have remained in remission whereas the 7 year event-free survival for the remaining 20 patients was 0.45 ± 0.16 (P = 0.002) Prospective studies in childhood ALL are needed to clarify whether combined monitoring of in vitro drug resistance and residual leukemia early during chemotherapy could offer new ways to classify patients and stratify the intensity of therapy.