Autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation for Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia

We report a 50-year-old male patient with Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia p oorly responsive to conventional chemotherapy, who went on to receive high- dose melphalan as conditioning before autologous PBSC infusion. Autologous hematopoiesis was reconstituted 5 weeks after transplant. Complete remissio n was confirmed by blood and marrow examination. The patient remains well a t 12 months, with no detectable monoclonal IgM in his serum and absence of plasmacytoid lymphocytes in his marrow. Our results suggest that, at least in this case, high-dose chemotherapy with autologous PBSC support was an ef fective therapeutic approach for Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia.