Abstract
The major cause of treatment failure following allogeneic bone marrow transplantation for acute leukaemia is disease relapse. In an attempt to reduce post- transplant relapse in 33 children with high-risk acute leukaemia who received a related or unrelated bone marrow transplant, the pre-transplant conditioning regimen was intensified by the addition of idarubicin. Its toxicity and effects on survival were evaluated over a 57-month period. Toxicity, largely gastrointestinal, was increased but acceptable, and there was no specific regimen-related toxicity. Relapse rates were low (24%) in this high risk group, but mortality was increased in those receiving unrelated donor grafts, largely due to sepsis. Idarubicin does appear to have a role to play in the conditioning regimen of patients with high-risk acute leukaemia undergoing BMT, and may reduce relapse rates without increasing transplant-related mortality.
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Part of this data was reported as an abstract and poster at British Society of Haematology, Glasgow, April 1998
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Lawson, S., Williams, M. & Darbyshire, P. Use of idarubicin in pre-transplant conditioning in children with high-risk acute leukaemia. Bone Marrow Transplant 24, 953–958 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1702029
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1702029