ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the outcome of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) for relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients in nonremission (NR) status and its related risk factors.Methods Thirty-nine relapsed/refractory AML patients in NR status who received allo-HSCT between Jan.2006 and Dec.2016 were retrospectively analyzed.Major end points of study included overall survival (OS),disease free survival (DFS),and relapse rate.Results All patients achieved hematopoietic reconstitution.Median time to neutrophil and platelet engraftment was 13 (11 20) and 16 (10-58) days,respectively.Acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) occurred in 25 (64.1％) patients,and 11 (31.4％) patients developed chronic GVHD.During a median follow-up period of 9.1 (1.6-93.8) months,11 (28.9％) cases survived,10(26.3％) survived without leukemia,and 21 (53.8％) relapsed.The estimated 2 year OS and DFS were 30.0％ ± 8.0％ and 26.7％ ± 7.7％,and cumulative incidence of relapse and transplantation related mortality at 2 years was 56.63％ (95％ CI 37.84％-71.71％),19.7％ (95％ CI 8.3％-34.5％),respectively.The multivariate analysis revealed that the number of bone marrow blasts≥25％ or any level of blasts in peripheral blood was significantly associated with worse OS (HR =11.91,P=0.003),DFS (HR =10.75,P =0.002) and higher rate of relapse (70.83％ versus 20.22％,P =0.002).In addition,the development of grade Ⅱ-Ⅳ aGVHD also predicted an inferior OS (HR =3.18,P =0.039).Conclusion Salvage therapy with allo-HSCT can induce long-term survival in part refractory/relapsed AML patients.Decrease in the pre-transplant disease burden is the key to reduce relapse and improve survival.
ABSTRACT
Treatments for patients with hematologic malignancies not in remission are limited, but a few clinical studies have investigated the effects of salvaged unrelated cord blood transplantation (CBT). We retrospectively studied 19 patients with acute leukemia, 5 with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS with refractory anemia with excess blasts [RAEB]), and 2 with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma who received 1 CBT unit ≤2 loci human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-mismatched after undergoing myeloablative conditioning regimens between July 2005 and July 2014. All of them were in non-remission before transplantation. The infused total nucleated cell (TNC) dose was 4.07 (range 2.76-6.02)×107/kg and that of CD34+ stem cells was 2.08 (range 0.99-8.65)×105/kg. All patients were engrafted with neutrophils that exceeded 0.5×109/L on median day +17 (range 14-37 days) and had platelet counts of >20×109/L on median day +35 (range 17-70 days). Sixteen patients (61.5%) experienced pre-engraftment syndrome (PES), and six (23.1%) patients progressed to acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). The cumulative incidence rates of II-IV acute GVHD and chronic GVHD were 50% and 26.9%, respectively. After a median follow-up of 27 months (range 5-74), 14 patients survived and 3 relapsed. The estimated 2-year overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and non-relapse mortality (NRM) rates were 50.5%, 40.3%, and 35.2%, respectively. Salvaged CBT might be a promising modality for treating hematologic malignancies, even in patients with a high leukemia burden.