Acute leukemia involves malignant transformation of blood-forming, or hematopoietic, stem cells originating in the bone marrow. While standard treatment regimens usually induce clinical remission, undetected minimal residual disease leads to high relapse rates. High-dose chemotherapy (HDC) involves administration of at least one anticancer agent in a dose that is planned to be sufficiently strong to completely eradicate leukemic cells in an attempt to reduce the risk of relapse. However, this approach destroys most marrow cells, suppressing the hematopoietic system. Autologous stem cell rescue involves harvesting stem cells from the bone marrow or peripheral blood of the patient during disease remission and reinfusing these cells in order to aid the recovery of the hematopoietic system.