BACKGROUND: Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) is the most common cause of leukemia in adults. Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) for the treatment of AML is done worldwide now.
METHODS: Between November 1987 and June 1998, we performed
allogeneic BMT for 27 patients with AML from HLA-identical sibling donors. We reviewed medical records of these patients.
RESULTS: The median age of patients was 31 (range, 15~43) and male to female ratio was 18:9. Conditioning regimens were BU/CY(busulfan, cyclophosphamide) for 22 patients, TBI/CY (total body irradiation, cyclophosphamide) for 3 patients, and TBI/VP/CY (TBI, VP-16, cyclophosphamide) for 2 patients. Cyclosporine and methotrexate were used in 18 patients for prophylaxis of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), and cyclosporine and methyl-prednisolone were used in 9 patients. The median nucleated cell dose given to patients was 4.1×10(8)/kg. All evaluable patients achieved absolute neutrophil count of 500/micro L after median
15 days after BMT (range, 11~45 days). Twenty-five percent of patients developed acute GVHD( > or = grade II) and there was no patient with grade IV acute GVHD. Twenty-nine percent developed chronic GVHD. Hepatic veno-occlusive disease (VOD) occurred in 7 patients (26%). At the time of BMT, 16 patients were in the first remission status and 11 patients were in the advanced disease status. After a median follow-up of 27 months (range 7~127 months), the actuarial disease-free survival at 5 years was
significantly higher in the first remission group than the others (44% vs. 9%; P=0.05). The difference of 5 year overall survival between these two groups approached statistical significance (50% for the first remission group and 12% for the others; P=0.13). There were 17 deaths. The causes of death were relapse (8 patients, 47%), VOD (3 patients, 18%), sepsis (2 patients, 12%), interstitial pneumonia (2 patients, 12%), chronic GVHD (1 patient, 6%), and drug-toxicity (1 patient, 6%). Early deaths
(<100 days) occurred in 6 patients (22%).
CONCLUSION: Allogeneic BMT for patients with AML was most successful when done during the first remission. Clinical features of patients with AML treated with allogeneic BMT were similar to those from Western countries, but the incidence and severity of acute GVHD seem to be lower.

Keywords: Bone marrow transplantation, AML