Possible Prolongation of Remission in Acute Myeloid Leukemia by Granulocyte Transfusions

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Abstract
To the Editor: Adoptive immunotherapy — the transfer of immunologically competent allogenic cells — can destroy residual cancer cells and result in long-term "cures" in tumor-bearing animals given sublethal chemotherapy or radiotherapy.1 2 3 4 In human beings a similar antitumor effect has been demonstrated in patients with leukemia treated with marrow transplantation; decrease in leukemic relapse has been observed in patients with graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).5 Although a number of cases of GVHD have followed granulocytc transfusions,6 7 8 demonstrating that these collections contain biologically important numbers of lymphocytes, no report of an antitumor effect in recipients has been published. We performed a prospectively randomized . . .