Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Original Article
  • Published:

Cord Blood Stem Cells

A pilot study of reduced intensity conditioning and allogeneic stem cell transplantation from unrelated cord blood and matched family donors in children and adolescent recipients

Summary:

Reduced intensity (RI) allogeneic stem cell transplantation (AlloSCT) was initially demonstrated in adults following HLA-matched family and unrelated adult donor AlloSCT. There is little information about RI AlloSCT in children. We report results of a pilot study of RI AlloSCT in 21 recipients (21 years). Age: median 13 (0.5–21) years, 8F:13M, 14 unrelated cord blood units (UCB) (10 4/6, 4 5/6), two related BM (6/6, 5/6), four related PBSC (2 6/6, 2 5/6), and one related BM+PBSC (6/6). RI: fludarabine, busulfan (n=14); fludarabine, cyclophosphamide (n=4); fludarabine, melphalan (n=1); total body irradiation, fludarabine, cyclophosphamide (n=1); or fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and etoposide (n=1). Graft-versus-host disease prophylaxis: FK506 0.03 mg/kg/day and mycophenolate mofetil 15 mg/kg/q 12 h. UCB median nuc/kg and CD34/kg was 4.3 × 107/kg (0.9–10.8) and 1.9 × 105/kg (0.3–6.9), and related BM/PBSC median nuc/kg and CD34/kg was 8.3 × 108 (4.7–18.9) and 5.0 × 106/kg (4.6–6.4). Maximal chimerism following unrelated cord blood transplantation, 100% × 7, 98% × 1, 95% × 2, 55% × 1, and 0% × 3; related PBSC/BM, 100% × 5, 65% × 1, and 55% × 1. Graft failure occurred in 5/21 (24%). In summary, RI AlloSCT in children is feasible and tolerable (25% GF) and results in 85% of recipients initially achieving 50% donor chimerism.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Wagner JE, Rosenthal J, Sweetman R et al. Successful transplantation of HLA-matched and HLA-mismatched umbilical cord blood from unrelated donors: analysis of engraftment and acute graft-versus-host disease. Blood 1996; 88: 795–802.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Cairo MS, Wagner JE . Placental and/or umbilical cord blood: an alternative source of hematopoietic stem cells for transplantation. Blood 1997; 90: 4665–4678.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Laughlin MJ, Barker J, Bambach B et al. Hematopoietic engraftment and survival in adult recipients of umbilical cord blood from unrelated donors. N Engl J Med 2001; 344: 1815–1822.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Kurtzberg J, Laughlin M, Graham ML et al. Placental blood as a source of hematopoietic stem cells for transplantation into unrelated recipients. N Engl J Med 1996; 335: 157–166.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Rubinstein P, Carrier C, Scaradavou A et al. Outcomes among 562 recipients of placental-blood transplants from unrelated donors. N Engl J Med 1998; 339: 1565–1577.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Rocha V, Wagner JE, Sobocinski KA et al. Graft-versus-host disease in children who have received a cord-blood or bone marrow transplant from an HLA-identical sibling. N Engl J Med 2000; 342: 1846–1854.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Gluckman E, Rocha V, Boyer-Chammard A et al. Outcome of cord-blood transplantation from related and unrelated donors. Eurocord Transplant Group and the European Blood and Marrow Transplantation Group. N Engl J Med 1997; 337: 373–381.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Storb R, Yu C, Wagner JL et al. Stable mixed hematopoietic chimerism in DLA-identical littermate dogs given sublethal total body irradiation before and pharmacological immunosuppression after marrow transplantation. Blood 1997; 89: 3048–3054.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Georges GE, Storb R, Thompson JD et al. Adoptive immunotherapy in canine mixed chimeras after nonmyeloablative hematopoietic cell transplantation. Blood 2000; 95: 3262–3269.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Slavin S, Nagler A, Naparstek E et al. Nonmyeloablative stem cell transplantation and cell therapy as an alternative to conventional bone marrow transplantation with lethal cytoreduction for the treatment of malignant and nonmalignant hematologic diseases. Blood 1998; 91: 756–763.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Bornhauser M, Thiede C, Schuler U et al. Dose-reduced conditioning for allogeneic blood stem cell transplantation: durable engraftment without antithymocyte globulin. Bone Marrow Transplant 2000; 26: 119–125.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Giralt S, Thall PF, Khouri I et al. Melphalan and purine analog-containing preparative regimens: reduced-intensity conditioning for patients with hematologic malignancies undergoing allogeneic progenitor cell transplantation. Blood 2001; 97: 631–637.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Spitzer TR, McAfee S, Sackstein R et al. Intentional induction of mixed chimerism and achievement of antitumor responses after nonmyeloablative conditioning therapy and HLA-matched donor bone marrow transplantation for refractory hematologic malignancies. Biol Blood Marrow Transplant 2000; 6: 309–320.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Childs R, Chernoff A, Contentin N et al. Regression of metastatic renal-cell carcinoma after nonmyeloablative allogeneic peripheral-blood stem-cell transplantation. N Engl J Med 2000; 343: 750–758.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Nagler A, Slavin S, Varadi G et al. Allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell transplantation using a fludarabine-based low intensity conditioning regimen for malignant lymphoma. Bone Marrow Transplant 2000; 25: 1021–1028.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Khouri IF, Saliba RM, Giralt SA et al. Nonablative allogeneic hematopoietic transplantation as adoptive immunotherapy for indolent lymphoma: low incidence of toxicity, acute graft-versus-host disease, and treatment-related mortality. Blood 2001; 98: 3595–3599.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Anderlini P, Giralt S, Andersson B et al. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation with fludarabine-based, less intensive conditioning regimens as adoptive immunotherapy in advanced Hodgkin's disease. Bone Marrow Transplant 2000; 26: 615–620.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Bornhauser M, Thiede C, Platzbecker U et al. Dose-reduced conditioning and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from unrelated donors in 42 patients. Clin Cancer Res 2001; 7: 2254–2262.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Nagler A, Aker M, Or R et al. Low-intensity conditioning is sufficient to ensure engraftment in matched unrelated bone marrow transplantation. Exp Hematol 2001; 29: 362–370.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Friedman TM, Varadi G, Hopely DD et al. Nonmyeloablative conditioning allows for more rapid T-cell repertoire reconstitution following allogeneic matched unrelated bone marrow transplantation compared to myeloablative approaches. Biol Blood Marrow Transplant 2001; 7: 656–664.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Chakraverty R, Peggs K, Chopra R et al. Limiting transplantation-related mortality following unrelated donor stem cell transplantation by using a nonmyeloablative conditioning regimen. Blood 2002; 99: 1071–1078.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Amrolia P, Gaspar HB, Hassan A et al. Nonmyeloablative stem cell transplantation for congenital immunodeficiencies. Blood 2000; 96: 1239–1246.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Fraser J, Cairo MS, Wagner EL et al. Cord blood transplantation study (COBLT): Cord Blood Bank Standard Operating Procedures. J Hematother 1998; 7: 521–561.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Rubinstein P, Dobrila L, Rosenfield RE et al. Processing and cryopreservation of placental/umbilical cord blood for unrelated bone marrow reconstitution. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1995; 92: 10119–10122.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  25. Cairo MS, Harrison LA, Ellis H et al. Tacrolimus (FK506) and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) is a safe and potentially effective alternative GVHD prophylaxis regimen in related (R) and unrelated (UR) donor allogeneic SCT (AlloSCT). Blood 2001, (abstract) 98: 662a.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Cairo MS, Szymanski J, Harrrison LA et al. A pilot study of AmBisome® prophylaxis in patients undergoing allogeneic related and unrelated stem cell transplantation (AlloSCT). Blood 2001, (abstract) 98: 354b.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Shereck EB, Bessmertny O, Cooney EM et al. Cytomegalovirus (CMB) prophylaxis with alternate day ganciclovir/foscarnet in at risk pediatric allogeneic stem cell transplant (AlloSCT) recipients is 100% effective in preventing CMV infections and reducing ganciclovir hematopoietic toxicity. Blood 2002, (abstract) 100: 627a.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Luhm RA, Bellissimo DB, Uzgiris AJ et al. Quantitative evaluation of post-bone marrow transplant engraftment status using fluorescent-labeled variable number of tandem repeats. Mol Diagn 2000; 5: 129–138.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Common Toxicity Criteria Version 20. National Cancer Institute: Bethesda MD, 1999.

  30. Glucksberg H, Storb R, Fefer A et al. Clinical manifestations of graft-versus-host disease in human recipients of marrow from HL-A-matched sibling donors. Transplantation 1974; 18: 295–304.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  31. Schulman HM, Sullivan KM, Weiden PL et al. Chronic graft-versus-host disease syndrome in man. A long-term clinicopathologic study of 20 Seattle patients. Am J Med 1980; 69: 204–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Kaplan EL, Meier P . Non-parametric estimation from incomplete observations. J Am Stat Assoc 1958; 53: 457–481.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Alter BP, Knobloch ME, Weinberg RS . Erythropoiesis in Fanconi's anemia. Blood 1991; 78: 602–608.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  34. Weissinger F, Sandmaier BM, Maloney DG et al. Decreased transfusion requirements for patients receiving nonmyeloablative compared with conventional peripheral blood stem cell transplants from HLA-identical siblings. Blood 2001; 98: 3584–3588.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. Junghanss C, Marr KA, Carter RA et al. Incidence of bacterial and fungal infections after nonmyeloablative compared to myeloablative allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Blood 2001; 98: 479a.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Sanders JE, Pritchard S, Mahoney P et al. Growth and development following marrow transplantation for leukemia. Blood 1986; 68: 1129–1135.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  37. Wingard JR, Plotnick LP, Freemer CS et al. Growth in children after bone marrow transplantation: busulfan plus cyclophosphamide versus cyclophosphamide plus total body irradiation. Blood 1992; 79: 1068–1073.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Huma Z, Boulad F, Black P et al. Growth in children after bone marrow transplantation for acute leukemia. Blood 1995; 86: 819–824.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Sanders JE, Hawley J, Levy W et al. Pregnancies following high-dose cyclophosphamide with or without high-dose busulfan or total-body irradiation and bone marrow transplantation. Blood 1996; 87: 3045–3052.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  40. Sanders JE, Buckner CD, Amos D et al. Ovarian function following marrow transplantation for aplastic anemia or leukemia. J Clin Oncol 1988; 6: 813–818.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  41. Hinterberger-Fischer M, Kier P, Kalhs P et al. Fertility, pregnancies and offspring complications after bone marrow transplantation. Bone Marrow Transplant 1991; 7: 5–9.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  42. Witherspoon RP, Fisher LD, Schoch G et al. Secondary cancers after bone marrow transplantation for leukemia or aplastic anemia. N Engl J Med 1989; 321: 784–789.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  43. Bhatia S, Ramsay NK, Steinbuch M et al. Malignant neoplasms following bone marrow transplantation. Blood 1996; 87: 3633–3639.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  44. Curtis RE, Rowlings PA, Deeg HJ et al. Solid cancers after bone marrow transplantation. N Engl J Med 1997; 336: 897–904.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  45. Deeg HJ, Socie G . Malignancies after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: many questions, some answers. Blood 1998; 91: 1833–1844.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  46. McSweeney PA, Niederwieser D, Shizuru JA et al. Hematopoietic cell transplantation in older patients with hematologic malignancies: replacing high-dose cytotoxic therapy with graft-versus-tumor effects. Blood 2001; 97: 3390–3400.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  47. Khouri IF, Keating M, Korbling M et al. Transplant-lite: induction of graft-versus-malignancy using fludarabine-based nonablative chemotherapy and allogeneic blood progenitor-cell transplantation as treatment for lymphoid malignancies. J Clin Oncol 1998; 16: 2817–2824.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  48. Maris MB, Niederwieser D, Sandmaier BM et al. Nonmyeloablative hematopoietic stem cell transplants (NM-HSCT) using 10 HLA antigen matched unrelated donors (URDs) for patients (pts) with advanced hematologic malignancies. Blood 2002, (abstract) 100: 76a.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Barker JN, Weisdorf DJ, DeFor TE et al. Rapid and complete donor chimerism in adult recipients of unrelated donor umbilical cord blood transplantation after reduced intensity conditioning. Blood 2003; 102: 1915–1919.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  50. Rini BI, Zimmerman T, Stadler WM et al. Allogeneic stem-cell transplantation of renal cell cancer after nonmyeloablative chemotherapy: feasibility, engraftment, and clinical results. J Clin Oncol 2002; 20: 2017–2024.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  51. Bregni M, Dodero A, Peccatori J et al. Nonmyeloablative conditioning followed by hematopoietic cell allografting and donor lymphocyte infusions for patients with metastatic renal and breast cancer. Blood 2002; 99: 4234–4236.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  52. Badros A, Barlogie B, Morris C et al. High response rate in refractory and poor-risk multiple myeloma after allotransplantation using a nonmyeloablative conditioning regimen and donor lymphocyte infusions. Blood 2001; 97: 2574–2579.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  53. Carella AM, Cavaliere M, Lerma E et al. Autografting followed by nonmyeloablative immunosuppressive chemotherapy and allogeneic peripheral-blood hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation as treatment of resistant Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. J Clin Oncol 2000; 18: 3918–3924.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  54. Socié G, Stone JV, Wingard JR et al. Long-term survival and late deaths after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Late Effects Working Committee of the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry. N Engl J Med 1999; 341: 14–21.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the expert editorial assistance of Linda Rahl in the preparation of this manuscript. We also acknowledge the nursing staff and bone marrow transplant team at the Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian at Columbia University for their superb care of these patients and their families. Lastly, we acknowledge and thank the children and their families for participating in this novel investigation. This study is supported in part by grants from the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation, Swim Across America Foundation, Triple ‘C’ Foundation, and National Cancer Institute (5P30CA13697-29).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M S Cairo.

Additional information

Presented in part at the International Society of Experimental Hematology (ISEH), Montreal, Canada, July 2002, and the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT), Keystone, CO, USA, February 2003.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Del Toro, G., Satwani, P., Harrison, L. et al. A pilot study of reduced intensity conditioning and allogeneic stem cell transplantation from unrelated cord blood and matched family donors in children and adolescent recipients. Bone Marrow Transplant 33, 613–622 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1704399

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1704399

Keywords

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links