title: Long term disease-free survival in acute leukemia patients recovering with increased gammadelta T cells after partially mismatched related donor bone marrow transplantation.
abstract: Allogeneic stem cell transplantation (ASCT) has improved leukemia-free survival (LFS) in many but not all patients with acute leukemia. This is an eight-year follow-up to our previous study showing a survival advantage to patients with an increased gammadelta T cells following ASCT. gammadelta T cell levels were collected prospectively in 153 patients (acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) n = 77; acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) n = 76) undergoing partially mismatched related donor ASCT. Median age was 22 years (1-59), and 62% of the patients were in relapse at transplant. Patient-donor human leukocyte antigen (HLA) disparity of three antigens was 37% in the graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and 29% in the rejection directions. All patients received a partially T cell-depleted graft using T10B9 (n = 46) or OKT3 (n = 107). Five years LFS and overall survival (OS) of patients with increased gammadelta compared to those with normal/decreased numbers were 54.4 vs 19.1%; P < 0.0003, and 70.8 vs 19.6% P < 0.0001, respectively, with no difference in GvHD (P = 0.96). In a Cox multivariate analysis, normal/decreased gammadelta (hazard ratio (HR) 4.26, P = 0.0002) and sex mismatch (HR 1.45 P=0.049) were associated with inferior LFS. In conclusion, gammadelta T cells may facilitate a graft-versus-leukemia (GvL) effect, without causing GvHD. Further evaluations of this effect may lead to specific immunotherapy for patients with refractory leukemia.
authors: South Carolina Cancer Center, Columbia, SC, USA. kgodder@vcu.edu
authors: K T
authors: KT
authors: Godder
authors: P J
authors: PJ
authors: Henslee-Downey
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Mehta
authors: B S
authors: BS
authors: Park
authors: K-Y
authors: KY
authors: Chiang
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Abhyankar
authors: L S
authors: LS
authors: Lamb
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation; D002423:Cause of Death; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease / Q000401:mortality; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D016692:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, gamma-delta / Q000378:metabolism*; D012008:Recurrence; D014019:Tissue Donors; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous
chemical_list: D016692:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, gamma-delta