|
Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) offers potentially curative therapy for patients with
myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). However, who should and can be transplanted, with which approach, and when is a
matter of debate. Even with the recent advances in the field of HCT, more than 50% of the patients failed to benefit from
transplantation either due to treatment-related mortality or to relapse. Disease stage, patient age, comorbidity,
pre-transplant chemotherapy, type of donor, source of stem cells, and possibly other factors, need to be considered to
decide to perform transplantation in an individual patient. Offering HCT to patients who were not candidates for
transplant in the past is now possible with the development of new transplant strategies. The introduction of
reduced-intensity conditioning has significantly reduced the treatment-related mortality but did not affect the risk of
relapse. New effective drugs, such as hypomethylating agents, histone-deacetylase inhibitors or lenalidomide, can be used
alone or in combination to reduce MDS burden before HCT or to prevent relapse after transplantation as maintenance or
consolidation therapy. And also, immunotherapy can be adopted to improve transplant outcomes. (Korean J Med
76:126-136, 2009) |
PDF Links
Full text via DOI
Download Citation
