Infectious complications in adults with bone marrow transplantation and T-cell depletion of donor marrow. Increased susceptibility to fungal infections.

The infectious complications of bone marrow transplantation were reviewed in 43 adults, 22 of whom received transplants from HLA-matched donors without T-cell depletion and 21 of whom received donor marrow pretreated with the murine anti-T-cell monoclonal antibody CT-2 and complement. Recipients of HLA-mismatched, T-cell-depleted transplants had a higher rate of bacteremia (1.33 compared with 0.64 per patient, p = 0.05) and especially systemic fungal infections (0.92 compared with 0.14 per patient, p less than 0.001) than recipients of transplants from HLA-identical donors without T-cell depletion; two thirds of these infections occurred during the granulocytopenic period early after transplantation. Recipients of HLA-identical but T-cell-depleted transplants also had significantly more systemic fungal infections (0.77 per patient, p less than 0.001). T-cell depletion was associated with delayed engraftment, more prolonged granulocytopenia, and more severe lymphopenia and was shown by stepwise multivariate regression analysis to be the most powerful predictor of systemic fungal infection (r = 0.512, p less than 0.0001). Whereas ex-vivo T-cell depletion may reduce the risk of severe graft-versus-host disease, it may predispose the patient to infection, especially with fungi.