Secondary Leukemia or Myelodysplasia Treated by Bone Marrow Transplantation

Abstract

Patients who develop secondary leukemia face a poor prognosis for survival. Chemotherapy to induce a remission has been complicated by prolonged leukopenia, infection, and a low likelihood of achieving a complete remission. Once achieved, the remissions are of short duration [1]. Combination chemotherapy with cytosine arabinoside and fludarabine, or treatment with topotecan show promise to increase the remission rate and duration of remission [2,3]. However, longterm survival is not likely for patients with secondary leukemia. Treatment of secondary acute leukemia by bone marrow transplantation from a family member or unrelated donor suitably matched for HLA has resulted in long term disease free survival for less than 30 % of patients due to a high relapse rate and significant non-relapse mortality [4,5,6]. We previously reported no statistically significant improvement in outcome whether patients with secondary acute myeloid leukemia (AML) were transplanted as initial therapy or following induction chemotherapyKeywordsChronic GVHDRefractory AnemiaSecondary LeukemiaSecondary Acute Myeloid LeukemiaFred Hutchinson Cancer ResearchThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.