title: Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation outcomes for children with B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia and early or late BM relapse.
abstract: Large registry studies have shown superior disease-free survival (DFS) with matched sibling donor (MSD) allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) over chemotherapy alone for patients with B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and a late BM relapse. As most of these patients will not have an MSD, the decision to pursue an unrelated allo-HCT in second remission (CR2) or await a future relapse and perform HCT in third remission (CR3) continues to be debated. Between 1990 and 2006, 41 children with relapsed B-precursor ALL received a myeloablative allo-HCT at the University of Minnesota. Graft sources consisted of matched related donor (n=11), matched unrelated donor (n=9), and unrelated umbilical cord blood (n=21). Before allo-HCT, 15 patients had an early relapse (<36 months from diagnosis) and 26 had an initial late relapse (36 months from diagnosis). In all, 30 patients (73%) were in CR2 and 11 were in CR3 (27%) at time of allo-HCT. Five year OS/DFS were similar for patients with an early or late marrow relapse, but there was inferior DFS among late-relapse patients transplanted in CR3 compared with CR2 (30% vs 75%, P=0.04). These results suggest that allo-HCT should be pursued in children after a first marrow relapse, rather than waiting for subsequent recurrence.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/Bone and Marrow Transplantation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA.
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Beck
authors.forename: Q
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Trotz
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Weigel
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Verneris
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Burke
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation / Q000379:methods; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000601:surgery*; D012008:Recurrence; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult