THE GRAFT-VERSUS-LEUKEMIA EFFECT OF POSTTRANSPLANT DONOR LEUKOCYTE INFUSION

Tumor relapse remains a major obstacle to the success of allogeneic bo ne marrow transplantation (BMT) as a treatment for leukemia. Due to li mited treatment options, the outlook for most patients that relapse fo llowing allogeneic BMT has been poor. The infusion of normal immunocom petent leukocytes from the original marrow donor has become a promisin g new option for treating/preventing leukemia relapse in allogeneic BM T recipients. This form of treatment has often been referred to as don or leukocyte infusion (DLI) therapy. Our laboratory is using murine mo dels of allogeneic BMT to address important unresolved issues regardin g DLI therapy in an effort to make the treatment more effective. These include identification of the antileukemic effector cells, aug mentat ion of the antileukemic effect, and understanding why graft-versus-hos t-disease (GVHD) is less severe than anticipated. This article reviews our work in murine models of DLI and introduces our current working h ypotheses concerning DLI therapy.