Autologous Bone Marrow Transplantation - Blog Science Connections

Effect of Interleukin 2 on T Lymphocyte Colony-
Forming Units After Autologous Bone
Marrow Transplantation
Andre Bosly and Michel Symann
Immunodeficiency with increased susceptibility to microbial, viral, and
mycotic infections usually persists up to 1 year ( 1 ) and even longer after
allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Concomitant with this immunodeficiency
is a prolonged imbalance of T lymphocytic subpopulations in favor of
T suppressor/cytotoxic subsets (2), which may be related to chemoradiotherapy
conditioning, to immunosuppressive treatment after transplantation,
or to graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) (3).
After autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT), the pattern of
immunologic restoration is very close to that observed after allogeneic transplantation.
However, ABMT is not associated with a histocompatibility problem,
immunosuppressive treatment, or GVHD. Therefore, autologous
transplantation appears to be a good model for studying lymphocyte
repopulation after intensive chemotherapy.
In this study we have investigated T lymphocyte-subset recovery and T
lymphocyte-proliferation capacity in 20 patients following ABMT.
PATIENTS AND METHODS
Twenty patients were studied. Diagnoses were: 12 small cell lung cancer,
4 lymphomas (3 non-Hodgkin's, 1 Hodgkin's disease), 2 germinal cell can-
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