Bone marrow transplantation for children with myelodysplastic syndromes

Therapeutic options for children with de novo or secondary myelodysplastic syndromes (MDSs) are limited. We report the outcome of eight pediatric patients (median age 12 years, range 3 to 19 years) with myelodysplasia who underwent allogeneic bone marrow transplantation between 1984 and 1987. Two of the eight children had developed secondary myelodysplasia after alkylating agent-based combination chemotherapy. Five patients had clonal chromosomal abnormalities, including four patients with monosomy 7. Seven of eight patients engrafted. Two of these seven subsequently died of complications of acute or chronic graft-v-host disease (GVHD), and a third patient died at 21 months of pulmonary fibrosis. None of the patients have had recurrence of disease. The four surviving patients remain in complete remission at a median follow-up of 19 months (range 10 to 44 months).