Allogeneic stem cell transplantation of adult chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia.: A report on behalf of the Chronic Leukaemia Working Party of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT)

We report the results of 50 allogeneic transplantations from related (n = 43) or unrelated (n = 7) donors, performed for chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia (CMML) in 43 European centres. The median age at transplant was 44 years (range 19-61). Eighteen patients had excess blasts ranging from 5% to 30% at the time of transplantation. Two graft failures were observed (4%). Neutrophil (> 0.5 x 10(9) /l) and platelet engraftment (> 50 x 10(9) /l) was reached after a median of 17 d (range 11-38) and 27 d (range 11-48) respectively. Acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD grade II-IV was seen in 35% of patients, while 20% developed severe-acute GvHD grade III/IV. Twenty-six patients (52%) died of treatment-related causes. After a median follow-up of 40 months (range 11-110), the 5-year-estimated overall survival was 21% (95% CI: 15-27%) and the 5-year-estimated disease-free survival (DFS) was 18% (95% CI: 13-23%). Earlier transplantation in the course of disease, male donor, use of unmanipulated grafts, allogeneic transplantation and occurrence of acute GvHD favoured better DFS, but did not reach statistical significance. The 5-year estimated probability of relapse was 49%. The data showed a trend for a lower relapse probability of acute GvHD grade II-IV (24% vs 54%; P = 0.07), and for a higher relapse rate in patients with T cell-depleted grafts (62% vs 45%), suggesting a 'graft-versus-CMML effect'.