The Basel experience with total body irradiation for conditioning patients with acute leukemia for allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.

We are reporting our experience with 13 patients suffering from end stage acute leukemia that were prepared for allogeneic bone marrow transplantation by combined chemotherapy followed by high dose cyclophosphamide (Cy) and total body irradiation (TBI). Only one patient became a long term survivor. Of the evaluable 12 patients, 6 died of interstitial pneumonia, 4 of GvH and 1 of recurrent leukemia. We conclude that adding combined chemotherapy to the standard conditioning program with Cy and TBI probably increases the risk of developing fatal interstitial pneumonia without eliminating the risk of recurrent leukemia. We suggest that allogenic marrow grafts should be performed earlier in the course of refractory acute leukemias, because in patients with end stage disease its chances of being curative are small.