title: Non-myeloablative stem cell transplantation in patients with relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia: results of a multicenter study.
abstract: Using non-myeloablative conditioning, allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) was conducted in 43 ALL patients in a CR2. The median age of the patients was 19 years. Patients received oral busulfan 4 mg/kg/day for 2 days; i.v. cyclophosphamide 350 mg/m(2)/day for 3 days; and i.v. fludarabine 30 mg/m(2)/day for 3 days. Oral cyclosporin A 4 mg/kg was started and methotrexate 5 mg/m(2) was delivered on days 1, 3, 5 and 11. The median CD34+ cell dose received was 5.0 x 10(6)/kg. The medium time to achieve a granulocyte count above 0.5 x 10(9)/l was 14 days. Thirteen patients were alive 30-1050 days after the HSCT. The 3-year overall survival rate was 30%. Ten patients (23%) developed acute GVHD, whereas eight patients (18.6%) developed chronic GVHD. Thirty patients died between days 47 and 1050 after the HSCT, most of them (70%) because of an ALL relapse. One hundred-day mortality was 15%, whereas transplant-related mortality was 21%. These results are inferior to those obtained using the same allografting method in other leukemias, probably as a consequence of poor susceptibility to the graft-versus-leukemia effect of the ALL cells beyond first remission as compared with other hematological malignancies.
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Hematología del Hospital Universitario de Monterrey, Monterrey, Nuevo León, México.
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Gutierrez-Aguirre
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gomez-Almaguer
authors.forename: O G
authors.initials: OG
authors.lastname: Cantu-Rodríguez
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Gonzalez-Llano
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Jaime-Perez
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Herena-Perez
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Manzano
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Estrada-Gomez
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Gonzalez-Carrillo
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Ruiz-Argüelles
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D020544:Graft vs Leukemia Effect; D006098:Granulocytes / Q000166:cytology; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007958:Leukocyte Count; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000628:therapy*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012008:Recurrence; D012074:Remission Induction; D015996:Survival Rate; D019172:Transplantation Conditioning / Q000379:methods*; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous