Follow‐up of patients with progressive multiple myeloma undergoing allografts after reduced‐intensity conditioning

Abstract
Summary. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo‐SCT) after reduced‐intensity conditioning was evaluated in 22 patients (median age 53, range 36–66 years) with multiple myeloma with progression after an autologous SCT. Seven patients received a transplant from a human leucocyte antigen (HLA)‐identical sibling and 15 patients (68%) from an unrelated donor [including 3/22 (14%) from a HLA‐mismatched unrelated donor]. Graft‐versus‐host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis consisted of serotherapy with antithymocyte globulin (ATG) and cyclosporine (CSA) (n = 12) or CSA plus mycophenolate mofetil (n = 10). Despite of heavy pretreatment, the transplant‐related mortality (TRM) for all grafted patients was acceptable at 5/22 patients (23%). Seven of 21 patients (33%) that were evaluated developed grade II GVHD and one (5%) patient developed grade III/IV acute GVHD. Seven patients developed chronic GVHD (cGVHD), but only one was extensive. Eleven patients died of progressive disease within a median of 7 months (2–19 months) post transplant. Thirteen of all 22 patients (59%) achieved a partial or complete remission with six of these 13 patients (46%) remaining event free at a median of 24 months (range 8–36 months) post allografting. Estimated 2 year overall and event‐free survival was, respectively, 25·5% and 22·0% for the whole patient group, and 62·5% and 57·1% for patients with chemosensitive disease. Chemorefractory disease prior to allogeneic stem cell transplantation (P = 0·0182) and absence of cGVHD (P = 0·069) were associated with shorter event‐free survival. Thus long‐term disease control can be achieved, but is restricted to patients responding to prior salvage chemotherapy.

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