Alternative Donor Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation for Children with Severe Aplastic Anemia.

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) from matched sibling donor is the standard first-line treatment for children with severe aplastic anemia (SAA). However, the management of SAA lacking a suitable donor remains a great challenge. For those children, HSCT using unrelated donor or mismatched related donor could be a therapeutic alternative. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the outcome in children with SAA who received HSCT from donors other than matched sibling.

Between March 2003 and July 2009, 17 patients received HSCT from alternative donors (AD) at Asan Medical Center. We reviewed their medical records and analyzed their transplant-related parameters and outcome.

Of a total of 17 patients, 11 were male and the median age at HSCT was 9.0 years, ranging from 3.0 to 16.7 years. Four patients had Fanconi anemia and 13 had acquired SAA including 2 who developed SAA after liver transplantation. Donors included unrelated bone marrow (U-BM) in 5, unrelated peripheral blood (U-PB) in 6, unrelated cord blood (U-CB) in 2 and related haploidentical peripheral blood (H-PB) in 4. Of 17 patients, 15 (88%) achieved sustained engraftment. Of 15 with engraftment, only 1 patient who received HSCT from U-CB died of severe GI GVHD and the other 14 patients remain on stable normal counts without transfusion support. All 2 patients (1 U-BM, 1 H-PB) who failed to engraft were dead despite DLI or 2^nd HSCT. With a median follow-up of 31.9 months, the Kaplan-Meier estimated overall survival at 2 years was 76.6%.

In children with SAA, HSCT from AD including haploidentical family donor could be considered as a treatment option if the patients have no matched sibling donor. Given the limitation of this study such as small number of patients and short follow-up period, further trial will be necessary.

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.