Acute leukemias are a group of diseases with high morbimortality. Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation is an efficacious therapeutic option for their treatment. We report the experience of a Brazilian center in respect to acute leukemia patients who received a bone marrow or peripheral blood allograft from a HLA-matched sibling from July 1995 to December 2005. Data were retrospectively collected. The median age of the 125 patients included in the study was 28.7 years. Eighty-one patients presented with acute myeloid leukemia, 38 with acute lymphocytic leukemia and six patients with biphenotypic leukemia. Thirty-two patients were in first complete remission, while 23 were in second remission and 70 were transplanted in an advanced disease stage (refractory, relapsed, or beyond second remission). Overall expected survival at 10 years was 22.9%; the expected survival was 56.3%, 38%, and 3.7% for patients in first remission, second remission and for patients with advanced disease, respectively. In conclusion, the evolution of patients transplanted in first or second remission was similar to other published studies. On the contrary, patients with advanced disease showed a dismal prognosis. The role of allogeneic transplantation in this group of patients should be further discussed.
Leukemia; bone marrow transplantation
