title: Time to engraftment following allogeneic stem cell transplantation is significantly longer in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome than with acute myeloid leukemia.
abstract: Patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) commonly present with pancytopenia, suggesting that the marrow stroma fails to support the growth of both malignant and normal stem cells. We therefore retrospectively analyzed the duration to engraftment of neutrophils (> or =0.5 x 10(9)/l and > or =1.0 x 10(9)/l) and platelets (> or =20 and > or =50 x 10(9)/l) in 37 MDS patients and 42 patients suffering from primary AML, following allogeneic SCT. A significantly shorter time to engraftment was documented in AML as compared to MDS patients in all four parameters. These results held true even when we subgrouped the patients according to gender, age (50 years being the cutoff age between young and elderly patients), patient-donor relationship, donor match and intensity of conditioning. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that such a comparison has been made. We suggest that the longer duration of post transplant pancytopenia that is frequently observed in MDS patients may also influence post transplant outcome.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cancer Immunotherapy, Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bitan
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Or
authors.forename: M Y
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Shapira
authors.forename: I B
authors.initials: IB
authors.lastname: Resnick
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gesundheit
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ackerstein
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Samuel
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Elad
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Slavin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009190:Myelodysplastic Syndromes / Q000628:therapy*; D013997:Time Factors; D019172:Transplantation Conditioning; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous