Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, which allows chemotherapy dose-escalonation, is an attractive strategy for solid tumors treatment, specially relapsed diseases. However, there are no phase III trials showing benefits. There are phase II trials showing excellent results for germ cell tumors, including cure for platinrefractory and heavily pretreated patients. Because of this, autologous stem cell transplantation is considered standard of care for relapsed germ cell tumor. The role of this treatment remains controversial for breast cancer despite twenty years of experience. It’s still done in clinical trials and it may benefit a subgroup of patients. The procedure offers no benefit for ovary, lung or cerebral cancer. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation for solid tumors relies on graft versus tumor effect, which is observed for some diseases: breast, colorectal, ovarian, pancreatic and, at last, kidney cancer, for which there is most experience. This treatment, however, is still experimental.
Stem cell transplantation; germ cell and embryonal neoplasms; breast neoplasms; graft-versus-tumor disease