Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant following chemotherapy containing l-asparaginase as a promising treatment for patients with relapsed or refractory extranodal natural killer/T cell lymphoma, nasal type

Abstract

The prognosis of advanced extranodal NK/T cell lymphoma (ENKTL) is poor. Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (allo-HSCT) has been suggested to be a promising treatment for this disease, but its utility has yet to be established. Here we retrospectively analyzed five cases of ENKTL treated with allo-HSCT in our institute. After induction chemotherapy, disease status at allo-HSCT was second CR in three patients and refractory in two patients. All patients received a myeloablative conditioning regimen, and GVHD prophylaxis consisted of tacrolimus or cyclosporine with short-term methotrexate. Only one patient who received conventional induction chemotherapy developed severe complications, which needed long-term treatment, while others who received chemotherapy containing l-asparaginase did not have severe complications. There were no cases of treatment-related mortality, and all patients survived without disease for a median follow-up period of 1911 days. These results suggested that allo-HSCT following l-asparaginase-containing induction chemotherapy might improve the outcome of advanced ENKTL.

Keywords:

• Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant
• extranodal NK/T cell lymphoma nasal type
• l-asparaginase

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the staff of the Department of Hematology and Rheumatology, Tohoku University Hospital, for collecting data and helpful discussions.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.