Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation without total body irradiation from unrelated donor in adult patients with idiopathic aplastic anemia: Fludarabine versus cyclophosphamide-ATG

Abstract Total body irradiation (TBI) has traditionally been used in the conditioning regimen for allogenetic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (alloHCT) from an unrelated donor (u-HCT). However, patients are increasingly receiving a fludarabine-based conditioning regimen without TBI, as it seemed less toxic than TBI. We need to know the clinical results of non-TBI u-HCT treatments. We retrospectively investigated the clinical outcomes of allogenetic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT) from an unrelated donor without TBI (non-TBI u-HCT) and compared the clinical outcomes of fludarabine-based (FLU group) and cyclophosphamide-ATG (Cy-ATG group) conditioning regimens. Sixty-one patients received the non-TBI conditioning regimen for u-HCT (32 in the FLU group and 29 in the Cy-ATG group). The cumulative incidence of neutrophil engraftment at 30 days, platelet > 20 K/μL at 30 days, acute graft-versus host disease (aGvHD) at 100 days, and chronic GvHD (cGvHD) at 2 years were 87.01%, 65.57%, 35.20%, and 26.64%, respectively. However, transplantation outcomes and overall survival rates did not differ between the FLU and Cy-ATG groups. Only infused CD34+ cells >3 × 106 kg−1 was identified as a favorable factor for survival in the multivariate analysis. In conclusion, non-TBI u-HCT was feasible and there was no difference between the FLU and Cy-ATG groups in terms of transplantation outcomes.