Persistent aplasia after chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukaemia treated with stem cell transplantation from a matched unrelated donor after dose-reduced conditioning.

Persistent aplasia is a rare complication with poor prognosis after intensive chemotherapy for acute leukaemia. A 59-year-old man with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), was treated after 186 d of chemotherapy-induced persistent aplasia with an allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (PBSCT) from a matched unrelated donor (MUD) after dose-reduced conditioning. The patient remains in complete haematological remission more than 8.5 months after haematological recovery. We believe that this is the first reported case of treatment for chemotherapy-induced persistent aplasia with MUD-PBSCT after dose-reduced conditioning, a procedure that can be successfully performed even in elderly patients.