FISH detection of chimerism in pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a well-established curative therapy for various malignant and non-malignant diseases. Successful outcome after allogeneic HSCT has been associated with donor chimerism (DC). However, the detection of residual host cells or mixed hemopoietic chimerism (MC) has indicated that donor chimerism is not obligatory following HSCT. More recently, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis has been applied to engraftment studies for the identification of polymorphic or sex chromosomes. In this study, chimerism status was evaluated in 48 sex-mismatched HSCT pediatric patients (17 women/31 men, mean age: 9.02 +/- 3.95 years, range: 2-19) by FISH and the effect of DC or MC on outcome and long-term disease-free survival was documented. The stem cell source was bone marrow in all cases. All of the donors were human leucocyte antigen-identical siblings. FISH was performed on 156 specimens between days +13 and +1878. Donor chimerism was found in 47.9% (23/48) and MC was found in 52.1% (25/48) of the patients. Fifteen of 48 (31.25%) patients died, of whom 12 (80%) were MC and three patients (20%) were DC. The difference in chimerism status (MC or DC) was statistically significant between those patients who died and those still alive (chi(2) = 6.813; P = 0.009).