Role of allogenic bone marrow transplantation in adolescent or adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia or lymphoblastic lymphoma in first remission.

Sixty-nine adolescents and adults 15-51 years of age with untreated acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL, 54 patients) or lymphoblastic lymphoma (LL, 15 patients) were referred for intensive antileukaemic therapy. Patients were treated according to one of two protocols. Both included induction and consolidation with vincristine, prednisone, daunorubicin, cyclophosphamide, Ara C and asparaginase. Fifty-eight patients achieved complete remission within 8 weeks of chemotherapy. One additional patient entered remission after allogeneic BMT. Altogether 86% of the patients achieved CR. Thirty-three patients are alive, corresponding to an actuarial survival of 48 +/- 6% at 5 years after start of therapy. Survival from time of achievement of CR is 53 +/- 7% at 5 years and disease-free survival (DFS) is 52 +/- 7%. Consolidation treatment was given to all patients except one. An HLA-identical sibling was identified for 30 patients (45%). Twenty-two patients were scheduled to be transplanted with marrow from an HLA-identical sibling. The survival and DFS in these 22 patients was 58 +/- 11% at 5 years. DFS was not significantly different compared with the DFS of the eight patients who received an auto-BMT and the 26 patients treated with maintenance chemotherapy. DFS at 5 years was 63 +/- 17% and 40 +/- 10%, respectively. We also evaluated the influence of the presence of an HLA-identical sibling on the treatment outcome of all patients alive 12 weeks after initiation of remission-induction therapy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)