Bone marrow transplantation from unrelated donors: the Italian experience. GITMO, AIEOP and IBMDR.

We report on 24 patients with leukemia (19 pts), congenital disorders (4 pts) or severe aplastic anemia (1 pt) who received bone marrow transplantation from unrelated volunteer donors in 8 Italian Institutions. All the donor/recipient pairs were serologically HLA-A,B,DR matched; MLR was non reactive in 21 out of 24 cases. Preparative regimens were in accord with standards for diagnosis and disease status and included TBI in 15 patients, busulfan in 8, cyclophosphamide alone in one patient with SAA. GvHD prophylaxis consisted of cyclosporine/methotrexate in the majority of cases; 6 patients received additional immunotherapy with anti-lymphocyte globulin and 1 patient in vivo Campath-1G. The bone marrow was T-cell depleted in 2 cases. Acute GvHD grade II-IV occurred in 87% of patients (gr.III-IV: 57%) and was the main cause of death in 8 cases. Six patients (25%) survive with a median follow-up of 9 months, (16% actuarial survival at 3 years). A trend in favour of a better outcome has been found for age < 20 yrs at BMT (33% vs 22%), intensified GvHD prophylaxis (33% vs 22%) and transplants performed in more recent years (31% vs 18%).