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Failure is not fatal: long-term remission in refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) after graft failure of cord blood stem cells

Leukemia volume 24, pages 666–668 (2010)Cite this article

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Here, we report the first documented case of long-term remission in a patient with refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) after graft failure of allogeneic cord blood stem cells, and subsequent remission of AML, along with an expansion of autologous CD8+ cytotoxic T cells.

The clinical course and laboratory studies in this case suggest that allogeneic cord blood cells triggered the oligoclonal expansion of autologous cytotoxic T cells that cross-react with the patient's AML clone. To our knowledge, this is the first case of a remission after an unsuccessful engraftment of CB-SCs, and therefore we will discuss these findings in the context of the graft-versus-leukemia effect and spontaneous remission (SR) in AML.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    J A Burger, N S Velev, E J Jabbour, W G Wierda, F Ravandi, J E Cortes & H Kantarjian

  2. Department of Stem Cell Transplantation, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Y L Nieto & E J Shpall

  3. Department of Hematopathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    J L Jorgensen

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  1. J A Burger
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  2. N S Velev
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  10. J L Jorgensen
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Correspondence to J A Burger.

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Burger, J., Velev, N., Jabbour, E. et al. Failure is not fatal: long-term remission in refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) after graft failure of cord blood stem cells. Leukemia 24, 666–668 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/leu.2009.275

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