Severe aplastic anaemia--complete response to antilymphocyte globulin and cyclosporin

A Jones-Lecointe1, A Murphy, W Charles

  • 1Department of Pathology, University of the West Indies, Port of Spain General Hospital, Trinidad.

Severe aplastic anaemia is uniformly fatal unless treated with immunosuppressive therapy or bone marrow transplantation. The latter is curative in 65% of patients and is the treatment of choice in children and young adults. Antilymphocyte globulin (ALG) and cyclosporin may be used successfully in the absence of an HLA matched sibling donor. We report the case of a twelve-year-old boy with severe aplastic anaemia who received immunosuppressive treatment with ALG and cyclosporin and is alive and well three years and six months post treatment.