Outcome of Peripheral Blood Allogenic Stem Cell Transplantation Using Non-anti Thymocyte Globulin (ATG ) Conditioning Regimens in Severe Aplastic Anemia Patients

The distinction between acquired and inherited disease may present a clinical challenge, but more than 80% of cases are acquired.

Therapy for aplastic anemia may consist of supportive care only, immunosuppressive therapy, or hematopoietic cell transplantation. Severe and very severe aplastic anemia have a high mortality rate with supportive care alone .

The British Committee for Standards in Haematology recommends treating infection or uncontrolled bleeding before administering immunosuppressive therapy, including in patients scheduled for hematopoietic cell transplantation. The Pediatric Haemato-Oncology Italian Association recommends hematopoietic cell transplantation from a matched sibling donor for severe aplastic anemia, and if a matched donor is not available, options include immunosuppressive therapy or unrelated donor hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-matched sibling-donor hematopoietic cell transplantation is the treatment of choice for a young patient with severe or very severe aplastic anemia , being generally accepted for patients younger than 40 years.

Recent years have seen increasing the use of hematopoietic cells other than bone marrow (BM). These alternative graft sources include peripheral blood progenitor cells and granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) bone marrow (G-BM). Several groups have demonstrated that peripheral blood progenitor cell transplantation has faster neutrophil and platelet engraftment compared to BM in patients with hematologic malignancies ; however, most adult studies also report an increase in chronic GVHD (cGVHD) Some adult studies describe improved survival with peripheral blood progenitor cells in adult recipients although survival generally was no different in those with standard-risk disease .