PCR/Fish Testing

Hi everyone,

So.. it's been awhile and I bet you are all wondering how Ryan is doing.. His latest appt was yesterday at Holly Cross in LA to get his blood drawn and to find out his PCR able test results.

When a patient tests negative in the 20 cell cytogenetics test for the Ph chromosome as well as the 500 cell FISH test for the BCR-ABL fusion gene, there is still residual CML disease left in the body, sometimes a million leukemic cells or more. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test measures this low level disease by being able to detect 1 leukemic cell in a million or more normal cells by amplifying one leukemic cell into many copies. The PCR test is a molecular test and the results is the molecular response of a patient.
• Qualitative PCR gives a positive or negative value for the presence of disease.
• Quantitative PCR (Q-PCR) gives the level of disease positivity in numbers.
You follow the disease by PCR numbers in the same way you tracked the Ph chromosome when the disease load was high by other tests. These test are necessary when tracking how the bone marrow is making new blood as well as tracking recovery because the goal is to get to molecular remission and to stay that way.

While we where waiting on the lab to fax back the results Ryan and I where in the room and he was explaining the difference between Fish tests and PCR tests. Fish tests are less sensitive at detecting (PH) chromosomes than PCR tests and when they track recovery it's necessary to run more tests (PCR) to determine recovery and cancer cells to get an idea of the best options in fighting it. The doctor came in and said to us that the PCR test shows no signs of cancer, and she explained that that is NONSENSE in her words and if a less sensitive test (Fish) shows PH then most certainly the PCR will show up. Long story short they are going to retest and send to another lab as she thinks the blood could have been tampered with because it does have to be sent to another state.

Ryan has an appt on Fri to have his blood drawn again and get it sent to a more credible lab so that we can start tracking his progress and get an idea of when he will be in molecular remission.

Treatment is going well his white blood cells are up and down but they are significantly low, that just means that his chemo (Gleevic) is doing as it's supposed to so good news.. Other than that he has been really tired and a little forgetful but that's normal for his circumstance.

Thanks EVERYONE for all the love and continual support given and thanks for buying bracelets and donating to the Leukemia/Lymphoma society. Hopefully we will update soon life is hectic this time of year so forgive us in advance for not updating as much...

Hope you are all enjoying the holidays and are taking care of yourself and your loved ones!

Jenifer