[Effect of parenteral glutamine on restoration of lymphocyte subpopulations after high-dose chemotherapy and autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation: data from a double-blind randomized study].

Within the framework of a randomized double blind study focused on the effect of glutamine on the clinical course of autologous transplantation of peripheral cells the authors assessed lymphocyte sub-populations (CD3, CD4, CD8, CD19 and CD57+ cells) before transplantation and 14, 28 and 42 days after transplantation. A total of 36 patients were investigated (18 glutamine, 18 placebo). In the whole group of patients the authors found restoration of CD4 and CD19 cells to pretransplantation values one day +42 after transplantation, in CD8 and CD57 cells a statistically significant increase as compared with the pre-transplantation state occurred. In the glutamine group they observed on day +28 a more rapid restoration of CD8 and a marginally better restoration of CD19 positive cells, while patients who were given placebo restored CD57+ cells more rapidly. All these differences were balanced on day +42, only CD19+ cells were at that time marginally higher in the placebo group. With the exception of CD19+ lymphocytes the authors observed weak correlations between the number of lymphocytes on day +42 after transplantation and the number of transplanted CD34+ cells. It may thus be stated that the drop of lymphocyte sub-populations has a short-term character, the restoration correlates among others with the administered amount of haematopoietic cells. Significant importance of glutamine for the restoration of the lymphocyte sub-population was however not proved.