title: Reduced-intensity transplantation for patients with myelodysplastic syndrome achieves durable remission with less graft-versus-host disease.
abstract: Reduced-intensity allogeneic transplantations for myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients have been limited by significant graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), treatment-related mortality, and disease relapse. We treated 18 MDS patients ineligible for standard allogeneic transplantation with a preparative regimen of photopheresis day -7 and -6, pentostatin 4 mg/m(2) by continuous infusion day -5 and -4, and total body irradiation 600 cGy in 3 fractions day -3 and -2, followed by allogeneic stem cell infusion from 6/6 or 5/6 HLA-matched related donors or 6/6 HLA-matched unrelated donors. GVHD prophylaxis consisted of cyclosporin A and a short course of methotrexate. The median age was 54 years (range, 30-70 years). Diagnoses included refractory anemia (n = 2), refractory anemia with ringed sideroblasts (n = 2), refractory anemia with excess blasts (n = 10), refractory anemia with excess blasts in transformation (n = 3), and chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (n = 1). Sixteen of 18 patients developed full donor chimerism with no day +100 transplant-related mortality. Grade II to IV acute GVHD and extensive chronic GVHD developed in 19% and 18% of patients, respectively. Disease relapse occurred in 2 patients. At a median follow-up of 14 months (range, 1-35 months), the 1-year failure-free and overall survival were 64% and 65%, respectively. Our photopheresis and pentostatin-based reduced-intensity preparative regimen for allogeneic bone marrow transplantation in high-risk MDS patients achieves successful donor engraftment and disease remission with less transplant toxicity and grade II to IV acute GVHD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02111, USA. gchan@tufts-nemc.org
authors.forename: Geoffrey W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: Francine M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Foss
authors.forename: Andreas K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.forename: Kellie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sprague
authors.forename: Kenneth B
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease / Q000517:prevention & control*; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods* / Q000401:mortality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009190:Myelodysplastic Syndromes / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D017893:Photopheresis; D012074:Remission Induction / Q000379:methods; D016019:Survival Analysis; D018183:Transplantation Chimera; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014916:Whole-Body Irradiation