Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• HILDEBRANDT, Martin
• RICK, Oliver
• SALAMA, Abdulgabar
• SIEGERT, Wolfgang
• HUHN, Dieter
• BEYER, Jörg

Titel

Detection of Germ-Cell Tumor Cells in Peripheral Blood Progenitor Cell Harvests: Impact on Clinical Outcome

Ist Teil von

• Clinical cancer research, 2000-12, Vol.6 (12), p.4641-4646

Ort / Verlag

Philadelphia, PA: American Association for Cancer Research

Erscheinungsjahr

2000

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Our study was conducted to evaluate the impact of tumor cell contamination in peripheral blood progenitor cell (PBPC) harvests on the clinical outcome of patients with germ-cell tumors undergoing high-dose chemotherapy (HDCT) and autologous PBPC reinfusion. Samples of mononuclear cells from progenitor cell harvests of 57 patients with advanced or recurrent germ-cell tumors were retrospectively screened for contaminating tumor cells using immunocytochemical staining for cytokeratin filaments and reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) testing for germ-cell alkaline phosphatase mRNA. The results were correlated to clinical prognostic variables as well as to the overall and event-free survival of these patients. Tumor cell contamination was detected in PBPC harvests of 16 of 57 enrolled patients (28%), and, among these, in 14 of 51 (27%) who underwent HDCT. The presence of contaminating tumor cells as detected by either immunocytochemical staining, RT-PCR, or both was strongly associated with a reduced overall survival (43% versus 71%, P = 0.0037) and event-free survival (0% versus 52%, P = 0.0005) after 1 year. In multivariate analysis, the demonstration of contaminating tumor cells had a higher predictive value for a poor event-free survival than other known prognostic variables. The presence of contaminating tumor cells in PBPC harvests of patients with germ-cell tumors seems to predict a poor overall and event-free survival in patients undergoing HDCT and autologous PBPC reinfusion.