THE IMPACT OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE BONE-MARROW GRAFT ON ENGRAFTMENT AND GRAFT-VERSUS-HOST DISEASE

  • 1 January 1983
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 11  (10) , 967-973
Abstract
To study the impact of the composition of the bone-marrow graft on engraftment and graft-vs.-host disease (GvHD), the data on 29 patients with acute leukemia in remission and 11 patients with aplastic anemia was reviewed. All of them received bone-marrow grafts from HLA matched, MLC nonreactive, sibling donors and were nursed in laminar down-flow isolators with selective gut decontamination, and received GvHD prophylaxis with methotrexate. The number of nucleated cells in the marrow graft-kg body weight of the recipient had no relation with the rapidity of engraftment or with the occurrence and severity of GvHD. The number of hematopoietic progenitor cells (CFUc)/kg had a weak, but significant, correlation with both the number of neutrophils at day 30 post BMT [bone marrow-transplantation] and with the day at which the reticulocytes passed the 10.permill. level. The number of T cells/kg did not show any correlation with either the occurrence or the severity of GvHD. The concentration of hematopoietic progenitor cells in the graft apparently correlates with the rapidity of engraftment. However, within the range of numbers of T cells infused in this study, no correlation is present between T cells in the graft and GvHD. Therefore, nearly complete depletion of marrow grafts of T cells is probably necessary to effectively decrease the incidence of GvHD.

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