Bone marrow transplantation for severe combined immunodeficiency disease. Reported from 1968 to 1977

Patients who received bone marrow transplantation (= BMT) for the treatment of severe combined immunodeficiency (= SCID), and who were reported in the medical literature from 1968 to 1977, were collected and analysed. Eighteen of these 80 children are still alive, 10 months to 9 years after transplantation. It is thus the first successful form of therapy for this otherwise invariably fatal disease. Fifteen of the 18 survivors received bone marrow cells from HLA and MLC compatible donors; the remaining 3 survivors received grafts from MLC-compatible but HLA-incompatible donors. Bone marrow transplantation is the treatment of choice for SCID when recipient and donor are HLA- and MLC-identical. All patients who received MLC-incompatible grafts died, and bone marrow transplantation for SCID from MLC-incompatible donors should be abandoned. Milt-to-severe graft-versus-host disease (= GVHD) occurred in spite of HLA- and/or MLC-compatibility, with some correlation to the number of cells transplanted. This should preferably be kept below 50 million cells per kilo body weight. Infection was the chief cause of death in all groups. Strict reverse isolation, bowel decontamination and routine pre- and post-transplant Pneumocystis carinii prophylactic treatment are recommended. The clinical picture and laboratory findings of these 80 children before BMT did not differ from non-transplanted SCID patients. Three of the 18 survivors are adenosinedeaminase deficient.