Detecting T315i Bcr-Abl Mutants In Leukemia Between Rt-Qpcr And Conventional Sanger Sequencing: A Comparative Study

Objective: To explore the clinical significance of real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) in detecting T315I BCR- ABL mutants in leukemia patients. Methods: A total of 62 leukemia patients were enrolled in this study. Peripheral blood from the patients was analyzed to determine which BCR- ABL mutants had occurred in the leukemia patients using Sanger sequencing. RT-qPCR was then introduced to detect the BCR-ABL mutants in the leukemia patients, and the results were compared with the Sanger sequencing results in terms of accuracy. Results: The T315I (C944T) BCR-ABL mutant was the most common mutation in the chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) patients. RT-qPCR demonstrated a complete concordance with Sanger sequencing in terms of detecting the BCR-ABL mutations. An ROC curve analysis indicated that the RT-qPCR method was of value in detecting the T315I BCR-ABL mutants, and the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05). Conclusion: The RT-qPCR approach is equally accurate in detecting the T315I mutation compared with conventional Sanger sequencing. In addition, RT-qPCR is easy to carry out, is less expensive, and is more non-specific, suggesting it will have broad prospects for application in the detection and monitoring of the T315I mutation in leukemia patients in the future.