Pulmonary disease following allogeneic bone marrow transplantation

Bone marrow transplantation is the treatment of choice of many haematological disorders but its success is limited by two major complications, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and pulmonary disorders. Of the first 31 patients transplanted at St. James's Hospital (1984-1986) 16 (52%) had a successful outcome. Of the 15 patients who died, two died of GVHD and one of recurrent leukaemia. All others had severe pulmonary disease either causing death directly (9 cases) or contributing to death from toxic encephalopathy, carditis or recurrent leukaemia (1 case each). The principal forms of pulmonary disease were cytomegalovirus pneumonitis (4 cases), acute haemorrhagic pulmonary oedema (4 cases) and pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (2 cases). There were single cases of staphylococcal pneumonia and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Aspergillus was a second pathogen in two cases. Pulmonary damage due to conditioning chemoradiotherapy and to GVHD probably underlies this high incidence of pulmonary disease. T-cell depletion to limit the incidence of GVHD together with increased prophylaxis against CMV and pneumocystis carinii will probably substantially reduce these complications in the near future.