1. ¹Department of Medicine, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland
2. ²Departments of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Vaccines and Viral Diseases and Immunology, National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland

Correspondence: Dr T Parkkali, Department of Medicine, Helsinki University Central Hospital, PO Box 340, FIN-00029 HUS, Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: terttu.parkkali@hus.fi

Received 17 May 2006; Revised 25 October 2006; Accepted 3 November 2006; Published online 8 January 2007.

Abstract

The HLA-identical sibling donors of 111 bone marrow transplantation (BMT) recipients were randomised to receive or not to receive tetanus–diphtheria (T–d), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and inactivated poliovirus (IPV) vaccines 2–10 weeks before BM harvest. Fifty-three (DV+ group) recipients received the graft from a vaccinated donor and 58 (DV- group) from an unvaccinated donor. All recipients were vaccinated with the T–d, Hib and IPV vaccines at 3, 6 and 12 months after BMT. Diphtheria and Hib antibody concentrations were consistently higher in the DV+ than in the DV- group from 6 months post transplantation onwards. The differences were significant at 6 and 13 months for diphtheria and at 12 months for Hib antibody concentrations. Tetanus, PV1, PV2 and PV3 antibody levels were similar in both groups. Patients transplanted from donors with high tetanus, diphtheria and Hib antibody concentrations had higher respective antibody concentrations after BMT than those transplanted from donors with low antibody concentrations. Especially patients whose donors have low-specific antibody concentrations may benefit from donor vaccination with protein and conjugate vaccines.