Transfusions shortly before HLA-matched marrow transplantation for leukemia are associated with a decrease in chronic graft-versus-host disease.

The effect of random red cell transfusions given shortly before allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) was evaluated in 969 leukemic patients transplanted from an HLA-identical sibling donor. Patients were divided into two groups: 501 who received a transfusion shortly before BMT, and 468 who did not. Both groups had a similar incidence of acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), but the recently-transfused group had a significantly lower incidence of chronic GVHD (35.9% vs 48.9%). These differences remained significant in a multivariate analysis of time to chronic GVHD (p = 0.022), taking into account other differences between the two groups and known risk factors for chronic GVHD.