• J Aschan and O Ringdén.
• Department of Clinical Immunology, Huddinge Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
• Clin Transplant. 1994 Jun 1; 8 (3 Pt 1): 258-70.

AbstractLong-term survival of 182 leukemic patients after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) was analyzed retrospectively regarding the type of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) prophylaxis and patient age. Monotherapy with either methotrexate (MTX) (n = 59) or cyclosporin (CSA) (n = 40) was given to 79 patients less than 30 years of age and to 20 older patients. These patients were compared to those receiving a combination of MTX+CSA (n = 55) or T-cell depletion (TCD) (n = 28) (38 patients < or = 30 and 45 > 30 years of age). Patient characteristics were similar in the two pairs of groups. The median follow-up time was between 4.7 and 9.6 years in the different groups. In younger patients, the incidence of grade II-IV acute GvHD was 38% amongst those treated with MTX or CSA and 14% in the MTX+CSA/TCD group (p = 0.008). Forty percent of older patients on monotherapy developed grade II-IV acute GvHD compared to 26% of those over 30 treated with MTX+CSA/TCD (ns). As a consequence, mortality from GvHD among younger patients was 19% in the monotherapy group and 3% in the MTX+CSA/TCD group (p = 0.03) with 37% and 10% (p = 0.04) in the older patient groups. The cumulative incidence of chronic GvHD was similar amongst treatments in the younger patients (39% in monotherapy and 39% in MTX+CSA/TCD), but was significantly lower in the MTX+CSA/TCD group among patients > 30 (55% vs 25%, p = 0.05). The actuarial overall survival at 5 years was unchanged in patients < or = 30, 49% and 43% in the monotherapy and MTX+CSA/TCD groups, respectively. However, in older patients survival increased from 25% to 46% (p = 0.04). An increase in leukemic relapse associated with MTX+CSA/TCD among both younger (26% vs 48%, p = 0.05) and older patients (0% vs 46%, p = 0.05) influenced the relapse-free survival, 48% vs 39% (ns) in younger and 25% vs 37% (ns) in older patients. Risk-factors for survival were dependent on the type of GvHD prophylaxis used. Using monotherapy, in contrast to combination therapy or TCD, multivariate analysis showed that recipient age > 30 years and HLA disparity between donor and recipient were correlated with poor outcome. In patients receiving MTX + CSA or TCD, a female donor to a male recipient correlated significantly with poor survival, which was not the case with monotherapy. Disease status beyond 1st complete remission (1 CR) or 1st chronic phase (1 CP), grade II-IV acute GvHD and recipient CMV seropositivity were significant risk-factors among all patients regardless of the type of GvHD prophylaxis.

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