title: The relationship between absolute lymphocyte count with PFS in patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma undergoing autologous hematopoietic cell transplant.
abstract: Previous reports in Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) patients undergoing autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (AHCT) have demonstrated a significant association between the absolute lymphocyte count at day 15 (ALC-15) with survival. To evaluate this finding further, we analyzed 146 patients with relapsed/refractory HL who underwent AHCT to evaluate the relationship between lymphocyte counts at apheresis and at two time points (days 15 and 90) after AHCT with PFS. We found no association between the ALC-15 and the ALC-90 with PFS. We found lymphocyte counts at apheresis and disease sensitive to salvage chemotherapy were predictive of PFS. In conclusion, our study does provide some support for the theory that the immune system may be important in disease control but further and more detailed studies in this area are required.
authors.affiliation: Autologous Blood and Marrow Transplant Programme, Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Tara.Seshadri@uhn.on.ca
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Seshadri
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pintilie
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Keating
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Crump
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kuruvilla
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001781:Blood Component Removal; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006689:Hodgkin Disease / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D018655:Lymphocyte Count; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019172:Transplantation Conditioning; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous