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Blood, Vol. 93 No. 4 (February 15), 1999:
pp. 1164-1167
By
From the Divisione Ematologica e Centro Trapianto Midollo Osseo di
Muraglia and Servizio Anatomia Patologica, Azienda Ospedale S. Salvatore di Pesaro, Pesaro, Italy; and The Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center, Seattle, WA.
One hundred seven adult patients with thalassemia aged from 17 through 35 years and transplanted from HLA-identical siblings between
November 1988 and September 1996 were evaluated on December 31, 1997. The outcome experience of 20 consecutive patients transplanted between
November 13, 1988 and January 10, 1991 and reported in September 1992 is updated after 5 additional years. The experience on 87 patients
transplanted between May 1991 and September 1996 is described and
evaluated as of the end of December 1997. Of 107 patients, 69 survive
between 1.5 and 9 years after transplantation. Sixty-six of these
patients do not have thalassemia and are identified as ex-thalassemic
after bone marrow transplantation. The youngest survivor is 20 years
old, 6 are older than 30 years, and the oldest is 37 years of age.
Patients with chronic active hepatitis at the time of transplant were
significantly more likely to die than patients without (P = .05; relative risk, 2.05). Marrow transplantation is a valid treatment
option for older patients with thalassemia who have suitable donors and
show deterioration with conventional therapy.
BONE MARROW transplantation provides
radical cure of the hematopoietic disorder of
thalassemia,1,2 with the best results in young patients who
have been regularly transfused and chelated with
deferoxamine.3 Examination of the results of transplantation in patients less than 17 years of age treated with a
regimen of busulfan (BU) at 14 mg/kg and cyclophosphamide (CY) at 200 mg/kg showed three risk categories predicting the outcome of
transplantation.3 In that study, the probabilities of
survival, of rejection, and of event-free survival were 94%, 0%, and
94% in class 1; 80%, 9%, and 77% in class 2; and 61%, 16%, and
53% in class 3 patients. Subsequently, a regimen with a smaller dose
of CY (120 or 140 mg/kg) reduced the incidence of transplant-related
toxicity and mortality for class 3 patients in this age
group.4
Early experience suggested that the results of transplantation for
thalassemia were particularly poor for patients older than 16 years.
However, when the categorization described above was retrospectively
applied to the adult experience, it became clear that these poor
results were associated with a large proportion of older patients being
in class 3. When the revised regimen for class 3 pediatric patients was
used for older class 3 patients, the results were much improved, and in
1992 we reported the results of marrow transplantation in 20 adult
thalassemic patients aged 17 through 26 years with the regimen
determined by risk class.5
Through 1996, a further 87 patients aged 17 through 35 years have been
transplanted in Pesaro, Italy and we now report the results of this
experience together with an update on the results in the 20 patients
previously reported.
Patients
Categorization Into Risk Groups
Conditioning Regimens Marrow ablation. All patients were prepared for transplantation with regimens containing BU and CY. All class 2 patients received BU at 3.5 mg/kg administered orally on each of 4 consecutive days (total dose, 14 mg/kg), followed by CY at 50 mg/kg administered intravenously on each of 4 consecutive days. Of the class 3 patients, 31 received BU at 4.0 mg/kg administered orally on each of 4 consecutive days (total dose, 16 mg/kg) and 43 received BU at 3.5 mg/kg administered orally on each of 4 consecutive days (total dose, 14 mg/kg). For 13 class 3 patients, the BU was followed by CY at 30 mg/kg on each of 4 consecutive days (total dose, 120 mg/kg) and the other 61 class 3 patients received CY at 40 mg/kg on each of 4 days (total dose, 160 mg/kg). Thus, of the class 3 patients, 13 received BU at 16 mg/kg and CY at 120 mg/kg, 18 received BU at 16 mg/kg and CY at 160 mg/kg, and 56 received BU at 14 mg/kg and CY at 160 mg/kg. Prophylaxis against acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).
All patients received cyclosporine (CSP) at 5 mg/kg/d intravenously
from day Marrow Infusion Marrow was infused 36 hours after the last dose of CY and the date of marrow infusion was designated day 0.Supportive Care All patients were treated in positive-pressure isolation rooms and received nonabsorbable oral antibiotics. Acyclovir at 15 mg/kg administered intravenously in three divided doses and prednisolone at 0.5 mg/kg administered intravenously were initiated on day 2 and
administered daily through the transplant period. Amphotericin B at 0.3 mg/kg was initiated prophylactically on day +9 and administered daily
until day +21, with reduced or suspended doses when levels of
creatinine and of blood urea nitrogen were elevated. Acute and chronic
GVHD were graded according to the Seattle criteria.6-8 The
first choice drug for treatment of acute GVHD was prednisolone at
escalating doses up to 10 mg/kg, depending on the degree and duration
of acute GVHD.
Evaluation of Graft Status Engraftment was documented by in situ Y chromosome hybridization of bone marrow or blood samples in sex-mismatched donor-recipient pairs and by analysis of variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) polymorphism in bone marrow and/or blood samples in the case of sex-matched pairs. Globin-chain synthesis of marrow and peripheral-blood reticulocytes was examined by incorporation of 3H-leucine followed by column or high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). Analyses of engraftment and the patterns of hemoglobin synthesis were first performed on peripheral blood and on bone marrow aspirates on day 21 posttransplant and repeated at biweekly intervals until day 60 to demonstrate engraftment.4Other Evaluations Liver biopsies were performed on all patients before transplantation. Liver hemosiderosis, portal fibrosis, chronic aggressive hepatitis, and chronic persistent hepatitis were evaluated according to an established grading system and recorded as absent, mild, moderate, or severe.9 Liver iron concentrations were determined by atomic absorption spectroscopy10 on frozen deparaffinized liver specimens.Statistical Evaluations Regression analysis of survival data with death as the endpoint was performed using the SAS PHREG procedure. The number of rejection events was insufficient to support regression analysis of rejection and rejection-free survival. Variables examined were age, class, age at diagnosis, age at first transfusion, number of transfusions, chelation index, serum ferritin, aspartatate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), liver and spleen size, liver hemosiderosis, portal fibrosis, and chronic aggressive hepatitis. In estimating rejection-free survival, rejection with recurrence of thalassemia and deaths were identified as events. Deaths in the absence of rejection were categorized as nonrejection mortality. Survival distributions were estimated by the product-limit method of Kaplan and Meier.11 These statistics were calculated with censoring on the date of last contact. In estimating rejection, competing risks were accommodated by using the cumulative incidence statistic.12
Group A Figure 1 describes the estimates of survival and rejection of the group A patients updated for this report. Since the original report on these patients,5 there have been no further rejections and 2 patients have died (1 from mushroom poisoning on day 502 and 1 from septic shock on day 1,363). Fifteen of the original patients survive between 6.5 and 8.5 years from transplant, 14 of them without thalassemia.
Group B Patient characteristics at the time of transplantation potentially influential on transplant outcome are shown in Table 1. Three class 3 patients had noteworthy values. One patient, diagnosed as having -thalassemia at
24 months of age and not transfused until 27 years, was transplanted at
35 years after receiving 140 red blood cell transfusions without
regular chelation. Another, who was transplanted at 21 years and had
received 58 red blood cell transfusions at the time of the transplant,
had a serum ferritin of 5,825 µg/L and a liver iron concentration of
41.90 mg/g at the time of transplant. The third patient, who was
transplanted at 24 years of age and who had received 372 red blood cell
transfusions before transplant, received intensive intravenous
chelation continuously during the 18 months before transplantation,
with a serum ferritin of 322 µg/L and a liver iron concentration of
1.4 mg/g. At the time of transplant, 2 of 13 class 2 (15%) and 33 of
74 class 3 (45%) patients had evidence of chronic active hepatitis.
The proportion of patients with thalassemia surviving beyond the age of
16 years is increasing, and this is a tribute to the effectiveness of
transfusion/chelation therapy.13 Data on disease status and
iron burden of populations of older patients are not readily available,
but, almost certainly, patients who have already achieved class 2 or 3 transplant-risk status have substantial morbidity and face significant
clinical problems associated with iron overload.
Submitted May 13, 1998; accepted October 9, 1998.
Supported by The Berloni Foundation against Thalassemia and A.I.L. of Pesaro.
The publication costs of this
article were defrayed in part by
page charge payment. This article
must therefore be hereby marked
"advertisement"
in accordance with 18 U.S.C. section
1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Address reprint requests to Guido Lucarelli, MD, Divisione Ematologica,
Ospedale di Pesaro, 61100 Pesaro, Italy.
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