Minimal residual disease in acute leukaemia: preclinical studies in a relevant rat model (BNML).

The AML model in the BN rat has contributed considerably to improved understanding of the various aspects of leukaemia growth, responses to chemotherapy, application of BMT as treatment modality and the possibilities and limitations for the detection of residual disease during the remission phase. Obviously, there are restrictions with regard to the extrapolation of the rat data to the human situation. Leukaemia growth in inbred rats is highly reproducible, while in humans it presents a high degree of individual variation. However, several characteristics are shared and the aim should be to identify the similarities as well as the dissimilarities between human and rat leukaemia. In that way progress may be envisaged with respect to reaching the final goal of curing human leukaemia.