Objective: To compare the hemopoietic reconstitution, immune reconstitution, infection, incidence of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and clinical outcome between unrelated donor peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) transplantation and bone marrow (BM) transplantation for leukemias.
Methods: The clinical results of 21 leukemia patients receiving G-CSF mobilized PBSC graft from unrelated donors were compared with that of 32 patients receiving unrelated BM transplants.
Results: Compared with BM grafts, the PBSC graft contained significantly more nucleated cells (P = 0.000), and resulted in a significantly shorter time-to-neutrophil (12.43 +/- 3.67 vs 16.16 + 2.99 days) and platelet engraftment (14.67 +/- 6.19 vs 21.23 +/- 8.25 days), (P = 0.000 and 0.003, respectively). T cell reconstitution between the two groups differed little after transplantation. The incidences of early-stage infection (42.86% vs 53.13%), the probabilities of acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) (61.90% vs 71.88%), the grades III to IV aGVHD (23.81% vs 15.63%), the chronic GVHD (47.06% vs 43.48%) and the probabilities of relapse (6.90% vs 12.50%) between PBSC and BM groups all has no statistical significance (NS). The 2-year disease free survival (DFS) rates of the two groups were (50.14 +/- 12.00) % and (59.81 +/- 8.99)%, respectively also have no NS.
Conclusion: G-CSF-mobilized unrelated donor PBSCs engraft more rapidly in the recipients as compared with conventional BM grafts. The T cell reconstitution, the incidence of infection, the incidence and severity of aGVHD and cGVHD, and the 2-year DFS rates between the two groups all have no significant differences.