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Adding 5-day decitabine to the conditioning regimen for haploidentical bone marrow transplantation in aplastic anaemia patients results in satisfactory clinical outcomes

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 57, pages 1461–1463 (2022)Cite this article

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To the Editor

Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) from a matched sibling donor (MSD) is a curable treatment for younger severe aplastic anaemia (SAA) patients, and the long-term overall survival (OS) rate is above 90% [1]. The annual percentage of haploidentical haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HID-HSCT) for SAA has shown an increasing trend [2]. However, owing to multiple mismatched HLA loci and heavy transfusions before transplantation, the rates of grades II–IV acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) and chronic GVHD were 26.6% and 25.0% [3], respectively, which are still much higher than those of patients with a MSD. The awareness of epigenetic regulation in the immune response during transplantation is increasing [4]. Recently, clinical studies have recommended the addition of decitabine in transplantation for malignant haematological disease, as it has shown a satisfactory enhancement of the graft-versus-leukaemia (GVL) effect and a reduction in the incidence of GVHD [5]. Until now, there has been no study about the efficacy and safety of adding decitabine to the conditioning regimen for transplantation with AA patients. Therefore, we herein investigated the clinical outcomes that combined the “Beijing protocol” with 5-day decitabine for preparative regimen.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the transplantation team of the Haematology Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University for their support. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81903966).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hematology, First Affiliated Hospital, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, PR China

    LinQing Tang, YiTing Wu, RuiQi Lei, Jie Liu, Dan Guo, YanQiu Zhao, HuiBo Li & ShengJin Fan

  2. Key laboratory of cell transplantation of Health Commission of the First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, 23 Youzheng Street, Nangang District, Harbin, Heilongjiang, PR China

    ShengJin Fan

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  1. LinQing Tang
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Contributions

LQT was responsible for designing and writing the research scheme, screening potentially eligible patients, collecting and processing the data, performing statistical analysis of the data, and updating the list of references. YTW and RQL were responsible for the data collection, analysis, and completion of data statistics. JL and DG were responsible for the review, modification and improvement of the research scheme, analysis, and explanation of the data results. YQZ was responsible for analysing the statistical results, improving the experimental tables and figures, and giving feedback on the research report.

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Correspondence to HuiBo Li or ShengJin Fan.

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Tang, L., Wu, Y., Lei, R. et al. Adding 5-day decitabine to the conditioning regimen for haploidentical bone marrow transplantation in aplastic anaemia patients results in satisfactory clinical outcomes. Bone Marrow Transplant 57, 1461–1463 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41409-022-01729-z

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