Post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorders

Stephen Gottschalk1, Cliona M Rooney, Helen E Heslop

  • 1Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Texas Children's Cancer Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. smg@bcm.tmc.edu

Annual Review of Medicine
|January 22, 2005
PubMed

Post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD) is a life-threatening complication after hematopoietic stem cell or solid organ transplantation. The majority of PTLD is of B-cell origin and associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). During the past decade progress has been made in better understanding the pathogenesis of PTLD, and early detection strategies, such as serial measurement of EBV-DNA load in peripheral blood samples, have assisted in the identification of high-risk patients. In addition, novel immunotherapies have been developed, including the use of monoclonal antibodies and adoptive transfer of EBV-specific T cells. Despite these advances, it remains a major challenge to define indications for preemptive therapies for PTLD and to integrate novel therapeutic approaches with conventional therapies.