“Variant-specific discrepancy when quantitating BCR-ABL1 e13a2 and e14a2 transcripts using the Europe Against Cancer qPCR assay.” Is dPCR the key?

We read with great interest the article by Kjaer et al. [1] aiming at investigating the performance of a standardized qPCR assay in quantification of BCR-ABL1 transcripts in chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) patients harbouring the e13a2 or e14a2 variant of the M-bcr (p210) fusion protein. The Authors observed a significant difference in the slopes of qPCR amplification curves between the variants, and compared qPCR results with absolute quantitation of BCR-ABL1 by droplet digital PCR (ddPCR), demonstrating that mean qPCR values were consistently higher for e13a2 patients and lower for e14a2 patients as compared to ddPCR, while no significant difference was present considering the absolute quantification by ddPCR. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.