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Stem-cell, bone marrow transplants score equally for leukemia: Study
by Jamie Anderson - February 1, 2010 - comments
Patients having acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) were 28.3 percent more likely to survive the 10-year span after a bone marrow transplant than after PBSCT. Survival rate for PBSCT stood at 13 percent.
Berlin, February 1 -- Leukemia patients who undergo stem-cell transplant tend to live just as long as their counterparts who undergo the more invasive procedure, a bone marrow transplant, German scientists have found.
According to the study carried out at Charite Medicine University, leukemia patients opting for the Peripheral Blood Stem-Cell Transplantation (PBSCT) survive just about the same as their peers who opt for a bone marrow transplant.
Unlike in a bone marrow transplant which requires collection of stem cells from the bone marrow, a PBSCT involves collection of stem cells from blood, thereby avoiding some major complications of a bone marrow collection.
Details of the study
329 patients from 42 transplant centers across 13 European countries, Israel, and Australia, were enrolled for the study. The participants had either received a PBSCT or a bone marrow transplant.
Patients who survived longer than 3 years filled in questionnaires regarding long-term events like chronic GvHD, late effects, and secondary cancers.
Findings of the study
Survival rate upon a 10-year evaluation stood at 49.1 percent for the blood stem cell recipients and 56.5 percent for the bone marrow transplant recipients, researchers revealed highlighting a statistically insignificant result.
However, patients with acute forms of leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) or acute myeloid leukemia (AML), posted better survival rates when treated with bone marrow transplant as against undergoing a PBSCT, researchers noted.
Patients having acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) were 28.3 percent more likely to survive the 10-year span after a bone marrow transplant than after PBSCT. Survival rate for PBSCT stood at 13 percent.
Likewise, in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the 10-year survival probabilities were 62.3 percent for bone marrow and 47.1 percent for blood stem cell transplants.
However, patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) posted similar survival rates; BMT 40.2 percent and PBSCT 48.5 percent.
"This update comparing two important stem-cell sources did not find differences in survival after 10-year follow-up. However, subgroup analyses did reveal notable differences in survival in patients with acute leukaemias between those who received allogeneic blood cells and those who received bone marrow, while no differences were seen in patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML)," study’s lead researcher, Birte Friedrichs, of Charite-Campus Benjamin Franklin in Berlin, Germany wrote.
The findings of the study are in line with results from the previous studies that found "different patient groups might still benefit from transplantation with bone marrow”, Friedrichs concluded.
Findings of the study feature in the online edition of the Lancet Oncology Medical Journal.