title: Effective and safe interferon treatment for Japanese patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia relapse after bone marrow transplantation. The Nagoya Blood and Marrow Transplantation Group.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of interferon (IFN) treatment in patients with a relapse of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) after bone marrow transplantation in Japan. Accordingly, we retrospectively analyzed the results obtained from 8 patients treated with IFN by the Nagoya Blood and Marrow Transplantation Group. One of 3 patients with hematologic relapse and all 5 patients with cytogenetic relapse achieved complete cytogenetic response (CCR). The median time to achieve CCR was 8 months (range, 3-16 months). One patient relapsed 9 months after starting IFN and died of blast crisis. CCR was maintained for a median duration of 47 months (range, 9-79 months) in the remaining 5 patients. The median duration of survival of these 5 patients after starting IFN was 58 months (range, 12-89 months). At the time of this report, 2 patients who did not attain CCR have survived for 81 months and 142 months after starting IFN, respectively. During IFN treatment, 1 patient showed a transient deterioration of chronic graft-versus-host disease, and no treatment-related deaths were observed. These results suggest that treatment with IFN for CML patients who relapse after bone marrow transplantation is effective and safe. A prospective study to compare IFN with donor lymphocyte infusion is necessary to establish the optimal strategy for the treatment of CML patients who relapse after bone marrow transplantation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, Meitetsu Hospital, Nagoya, Japan.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sao
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kato
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kitaori
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Adachi
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yano
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kojima
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tanimoto
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hirabayashi
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Minami
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: G Y
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Morishita
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Morishima
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kodera
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects; D020732:Cytogenetic Analysis; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D004341:Drug Evaluation; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease; D006801:Humans; D007372:Interferons / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000592:standards / Q000633:toxicity; D015464:Leukemia, Myelogenous, Chronic, BCR-ABL Positive / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000209:etiology; D008297:Male; D012008:Recurrence; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D007372:Interferons