title: Is there a graft-versus-leukaemia effect in the absence of graft-versus-host disease in patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation for acute leukaemia?
abstract: During a 13-year period, 5200 autografts, 1039 HLA-identical sibling transplants without acute or chronic graft-vs.-host disease (GVHD) and 67 twins were reported to the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation EBMT. Follow-up time was a median of 32 months. Diagnoses were acute myeloid leukaemia (AML, 4521) and acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL, 1785) in first complete remission. The probability of relapse at 5 years was 51 +/- 1% in the autografts, 45 +/- 8% in the twins and 34 +/- 2% among the HLA-identical siblings (auto vs. sibs, P < 0.0001). In multivariate analyses, the following factors were significantly associated with an increased risk of relapse: ALL vs. AML M3 [relapse rate (RR) 2.29, P < 0.0001], AML non-M3 vs. AML M3 (RR 1.8, P < 0.0001), autograft vs. sibling transplant (RR 1.76, P < 0.0001), interval diagnosis to transplantation < 261 d (RR 1.45, P < 0.001) and other conditioning vs. total body irradiation (RR 1.16, P = 0.001). Transplant-related mortality was the same in the three groups at approximately 10% at 2 years. Five-year leukaemia-free survival was 42 +/- 1% in the autografts, 44 +/- 8% in the twins and 58 +/- 2% among the siblings (auto vs. sibs, P < 0.0001). The factors significant for relapse were also significant in multivariate analyses for leukaemia-free survival. In addition, children had a significantly better leukaemia-free survival than adults (RR 0.82, P < 0.0001). Recipients of bone marrow from HLA-identical siblings without GVHD had a lower risk of relapse and a better leukaemia-free survival than recipients of autografts. This may be as a result of a graft-vs.-leukaemia effect in the absence of GVHD.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Allogeneic Stem-cell Transplantation, Huddinge, Sweden. olle,ringden@impi.ki.se
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ringdén
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Labopin
authors.forename: N C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Gorin
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Schmitz
authors.forename: U W
authors.initials: UW
authors.lastname: Schaefer
authors.forename: H G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Prentice
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bergmann
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Jouet
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mandelli
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Blaise
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fouillard
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Frassoni
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation / Q000401:mortality; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D004200:Diseases in Twins; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease; D020544:Graft vs Leukemia Effect; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007951:Leukemia, Myeloid / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D007958:Leukocyte Count; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D012008:Recurrence; D012306:Risk; D019172:Transplantation Conditioning; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous; D014185:Transplantation, Isogeneic; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic