Bone marrow transplantation for patients with severe aplastic anemia and myelodysplastic syndrome

A survey of the results of marrow transplantation for severe aplastic anemia (SAA) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in Japan is reported. Of the 152 patients with SAA, 109 were alive between 2 and 132 months following transplantation and the probability of survival at 5 years was 70% (for the patients with grafts from HLA-matched siblings) and 100% (for the patients with grafts from monozygous twins). Survival rate at 3 years for the patients with grafts from family members other than HLA-matched siblings was 46%. The chance of survival was influenced by conditioning regimen and recipient's age. Recipients with sustained engraftment had a significantly higher survival rate than those with graft failure (83% vs 11%, p less than 0.001). Since 1985, the results of transplantation from HLA-matched siblings have improved and the 3-year survival is more than 90% for patients under 20 years old. For MDS, the actuarial survival at 3 years was 42%. The chance of survival was not influenced by the FAB classification, patient's age, patient's sex, interval from diagnosis to transplant, karyotype anomaly or graft versus host disease.