Potential of autologous immunologic effector cells for prediction of progression of disease in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia

In autologous bone marrow transplantation, immunologic effector cells such as lymphokine activated killer (LAK) cells may be useful for purging of bon e marrow since these cells might have an additional in vivo effect on tumor cells in contrast to other purging protocols. Recently, immunologic effector cells termed cytokine-induced killer (CIK) c ells have been shown to be more useful than LAK cells for purging of autolo gous BM in the context of autologous BMT. Here, we show that the expression of bcr/abl in CIK cells generated from patients with CML correlates with p rogression of disease in individual patients. In addition, progression of d isease from chronic phase to accelerated phase could be predicted in two pa tients by studying the expression of bcr/abl in CIK cells generated from CM L patients. Thus, it might be possible to use CIK cell generation for the p rediction of progression of disease in CML patients.