Superiority of Leukemic Stem Cell-Based Minimal Residual Disease Assay to Traditional Multiparameter Flow Cytometry-Based Method for Relapse Prediction in AML Patients: A Prospective Study with Randomized Training and Validation Sets

Background: Minimal/measurable residual disease (MRD) determined by multiparameter flow cytometry (MFC) is an important variable for relapse prediction and treatment approach selection in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). We aimed to investigate whether leukemia-stem cell (LSC)-based assay is superior to traditional MFC methods, including LAIP and D-F-N assays, for MRD evaluation in predicting clinical outcomes.