title: Response of therapy-related myelodysplasia to low-dose interleukin-2.
abstract: We report the case of a patient treated with interleukin-2 (IL-2) for refractory anemia with excess blasts (RAEB), which developed during third complete remission of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. IL-2 was given subcutaneously at 2.5 x 10(5) IU (= 10(5) BRMP units) twice daily for 30 days. During treatment spontaneous natural killer (NK) activity was enhanced, circulating lymphokine-activated killer effector cells became detectable and CD56+/CD3- NK cells in the blood doubled. The response in the bone marrow was a reduction in myeloid blast cells (from 7 to 0%), ringed sideroblasts (from > 15 to 0%) and dysplasia (from trilineage to minimal megakaryocytic), and a decrease in metaphases with the RAEB karyotype (from 43 to 2%). Toxicity of IL-2 was minimal. Thus a relatively low dose of IL-2 caused immune activation and resulted in significant hematologic and cytogenetic response in this case of therapy-related myelodysplasia.
authors.affiliation: Leukemia/Bone Marrow Transplantation Program of British Columbia, Vancouver General Hospital, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: C L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Toze
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Barnett
authors.forename: H G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Klingemann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000754:Anemia, Refractory, with Excess of Blasts / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000209:etiology; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007376:Interleukin-2 / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D009190:Myelodysplastic Syndromes / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000209:etiology; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000150:complications
chemical_list: D007376:Interleukin-2