MOBILIZED VERSUS NON-MOBILIZED PERIPHERAL STEM-CELL TRANSPLANTATION AFTER HIGH-DOSE THERAPY FOR LOW-GRADE NONHODGKIN LYMPHOMA - EFFECT ON FAILURE-FREE SURVIVAL
A. Kessinger et al., MOBILIZED VERSUS NON-MOBILIZED PERIPHERAL STEM-CELL TRANSPLANTATION AFTER HIGH-DOSE THERAPY FOR LOW-GRADE NONHODGKIN LYMPHOMA - EFFECT ON FAILURE-FREE SURVIVAL, Cancer research, therapy & control, 5(2), 1998, pp. 113-119
Problem Investigators have recently reported that intentional mobiliza
tion of progenitors into the circulation of cancer patients using myel
osuppressive chemotherapy and/or hematopoietic growth factor is someti
mes associated with an increased number of circulating malignant cells
. Therefore, collections of mobilized autologous peripheral stem cells
for transplantation could potentially contain more occult tumor cells
than collections of non-mobilized cells. If these mobilized tumor cel
ls were capable of restoring disease when reinfused to patients underg
oing high dose therapy and peripheral stem cell transplantation (PSCT)
, then patients receiving mobilized PSCT would be at risk for a poorer
failure-free survival than patients autografted with non-mobilized ce
lls. Methods To investigate this premise, the outcomes of all patients
with low grade non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) treated at a single institu
tion before April 15, 1994 with high dose therapy and PSCT were review
ed. Results Thirty-seven patients received non-mobilized peripheral st
em cells at the time of autografting and 64 patients were transplanted
with autologous cells that had been mobilized with hematopoietic grow
th factor. Following PSCT, no differences were found in the failure-fr
ee survival of patients who received mobilized versus non-mobilized ce
lls for transplant. Conclusion Growth factor mobilization did not infl
uence the relapse rate for these patients with low grade NHL following
peripheral stem cell autografting.