Table 1.

Comparison of Methods for BCR-ABL Mutation Detection

Method	Sensitivity	Advantages	Disadvantages
Direct sequencing (Sanger)	20% to 25%	Bidirectional confirmation	May require nested PCR to obtain enough product
		Routine method available in most labs	Expensive and time-consuming
			Not quantitative
Pyrosequencing	1% to 5%	Lower cost	Shorter read lengths require more PCR amplicons for full BCR-ABL KD coverage
		Higher sensitivity
		Quantitative
Mutation-specific RQ-PCR	0.01% to .1%	Highest sensitivity	Need different primers and/or probes for each mutation
		Quantitative
		Could be multiplexed
Liquid bead-array (Luminex)	5% to 10%	Can be multiplexed to detect multiple mutations	Largely qualitative
		Lower cost