title: Treatment of hematologic malignancies with alternate hemibody irradiation combined with high-dose chemotherapy: a single-center experience.
abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcome of the treatment of hematologic malignancies with alternate hemibody irradiation (AHBI) combined with high-dose chemotherapy. Seventeen patients with hematologic malignancies were treated with AHBI combined with high-dose chemotherapy. Following high-dose chemotherapy, upper hemibody irradiation (UHBI) and lower hemibody irradiation (LHBI) were given sequentially in a dose of 6 to 9 Gy. UHBI was given 14 days (range, 12-22 days) after high-dose chemotherapy, and LHBI was performed 23 days (range, 7-34 days) after UHBI. Meanwhile, we treated a control group of 14 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) with autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT). Hematopoietic reconstitution was observed in all of the patients. The median follow-up period was 927 days (range, 428-1446 days). The 3-year probabilities of disease-free survival (DFS) were 52.38% +/- 13.47% for the patients in complete remission who underwent AHBI. No patient died of AHBI-related toxicity. The 3-year DFS rates for the 2 groups of patients with ALL were not significantly different (47.73% +/- 17.55% in the AHBI group and 53.88% +/- 14.08% in the AHSCT group; P > .05). AHBI combined with high-dose chemotherapy is a feasible approach for patients with hematologic malignancies and has the advantages of a desirable effectiveness, low costs, simple operation, and acceptable side effects.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Haematology, Blood Disease Hospital, CAMS and PUMC, Tianjin, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jialin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Mei
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Dehui
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Donglin
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ning
authors.forename: Sizhou
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Mingzhe
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Han
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D019337:Hematologic Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D017619:Hemibody Irradiation; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous; D016896:Treatment Outcome