1. ¹Department of Pediatrics, Osaka Medical Center and Research Institute for Maternal and Child Health, Osaka, Japan
2. ²Department of Pediatrics, Nara Medical University, Nara, Japan
3. ³Department of Pediatric Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan
4. ⁴Department of Radiology, Osaka Medical Center and Research Institute for Maternal and Child Health, Osaka, Japan
5. ⁵Department of Pathology, Osaka Medical Center and Research Institute for Maternal and Child Health, Osaka, Japan

Correspondence: Dr M Inoue, Department of Pediatrics, Osaka Medical Center and Research Institute for Maternal and Child Health, 840 Murodo-cho, Izumi, Osaka 594-1101, Japan

Received 2 November 2002; Accepted 3 February 2003.

Abstract

A 5-year-old boy received CD34-positive HLA haplo-identical bone marrow transplantation from his father as treatment for refractory advanced neuroblastoma. He had residual disease in the para-aortic lymph nodes and multiple bones after the transplant. However, all of his residual disease had disappeared completely 3 years later. He developed grade I acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) but had no symptoms of chronic GVHD or any other complications. This case demonstrates the possibility of a graft-versus-tumor effect against neuroblastoma by HLA-mismatched allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.