Leukemia Relapse in Donor Cells after Allogeneic Bone-Marrow Transplantation

Abstract

ABLATIVE chemotherapy with allogeneic bone-marrow transplantation has become an accepted means of therapy for acute leukemia.1 It is the only treatment capable of producing long-term unmaintained remissions in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who have had relapses during the course of conventional chemotherapy, and it has been advocated for acute myeloblastic leukemia in first remission.1 An initially unforeseen and rare form of failure of such therapy has been the relapse of leukemia in donor cells.2 3 4 5 We report here our experience with a patient with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who had a relapse after therapy with high-dose cyclophosphamide, total-body irradiation, and bone-marrow . . .