Autologous bone marrow transplantation for acute myeloid leukemia using
monoclonal antibody-purged bone marrow
ED Ball, LE Mills, GG Cornwell , BH Davis, CT Coughlin, AL Howell, TA Stukel, BJ Dain, R McMillan and W Spruce
Department of Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Hanover, NH.
We report our experience from a clinical trial of autologous bone marrow
transplantation (ABMT) in the treatment of 30 patients with acute myeloid
leukemia (AML) using monoclonal antibody (MoAb) and complement-treated bone
marrow. All patients were in complete remission (CR) at the time of
transplant: 6 patients were in first CR, 18 in second CR, and 6 in third
CR. The median age of all patients was 42 years (range 11 to 57 years). For
marrow ablation, 28 patients were treated with cyclophosphamide and total
body irradiation. One patient was treated with busulfan and
cyclophosphamide and one was treated with busulfan and VP-16. Each patient
was then transfused with autologous bone marrow that had been harvested
previously and treated with two MoAbs, PM-81 and AML-2-23, and rabbit
complement. Median time to recovery of neutrophils (500/microL) was 30
days, and platelets (20,000/microL) was 45 days. Median time for initial
erythrocyte engraftment, assessed by a flow cytometric reticulocyte assay,
was 13 days. Median overall and relapse-free survival of first CR patients
was at least 17.4 months post-ABMT and the 2- and 3-year actuarial overall
and relapse-free survival was 67% (+/- 19%). Median survival for the 24
patients in second or third CR was 6.8 months post-ABMT and 9.3 months
since CR; however, six patients survived disease-free from 16 to 61 months
post-ABMT. For the second and third CR group it was observed that six
patients (5 of the 6 survivors) showed "inversions," when their post-ABMT
remission lasted longer than any previous one. Actuarial 2- and 3-year
disease-free and overall survival of patients in second and third CR was
25% (+/- 9%) and 18% (+/- 9%), and 29% (+/- 9%) and 23% (+/- 9%),
respectively. ABMT avoids the problems of graft- versus-host disease and of
finding suitable donors for allogeneic marrow transplantation.
Volume 75,
Issue 5,
pp. 1199-1206,
03/01/1990
Copyright © 1990 by The American Society of Hematology