Partial chimerism after T-cell-depleted allogeneic bone marrow
transplantation in leukemic HLA-matched patients: a cytogenetic
documentation
MF Bertheas, D Maraninchi, M Lafage, J Fraisse, D Blaise, AM Stoppa, G Michel, CP Brizard, MH Gaspard and G Novakovitch
Cytogenetic Laboratory of the Blood Bank, Saint Etienne, France.
We evaluated serially by cytogenetics the blood and marrow chimerism of 38
leukemic recipients of HLA-matched bone marrow transplants (BMT) who were
prepared by high doses of alkylating agents and fractionated total- body
irradiation (2.2 Gy X 5). Donor or host mitoses were identified by
examination of sex chromosomes in 32 patients or by evaluation of the
polymorphism of other chromosomes after specific banding in six patients.
Twenty-four patients were recipients of untreated BMT, and 14 were
recipients of T-cell-depleted BMT. In the 24 patients who received
untreated BMT, all showed successful engraftment, and only three had a
transient mixed chimera. In the 14 recipients of T-cell-depleted BMTs, four
rejected their grafts, and seven had mixed chimeras; these mixed chimeras
were more frequent in blood lymphocytes than in marrow cells and could be
detected up to 26 months after BMT. This high frequency of partial
chimerism after T-cell-depleted BMT by comparison with a control group
suggests that the donor's T cells play an important role in the eradication
of host residual hematopoiesis after allogeneic BMT.
Volume 72,
Issue 1,
pp. 89-93,
07/01/1988
Copyright © 1988 by The American Society of Hematology
