Graft-versus-Host Disease Prophylaxis with Post-Transplantation Cyclophosphamide versus Cyclosporine A and Methotrexate in Matched Sibling Donor Transplantation

Arnon Nagler, Myriam Labopin, Bhagirathbhai Dholaria*, Depei Wu, Goda Choi, Mahmoud Aljurf, Fabio Ciceri, Tobias Gedde-Dahl, Ellen Meijer, Riitta Niittyvuopio, Sergey Bondarenko, Jean Henri Bourhis, Jan J. Cornelissen, Gerard Socié, Yener Koc, Jonathan Canaani, Bipin Savani, Gesine Bug, Alexandros Spyridonidis, Sebastian GiebelEolia Brissot, Ali Bazarbachi, Jordi Esteve, Mohamad Mohty

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Cyclosporine A (CSA) and methotrexate (MTX) is the standard graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis regimen for matched sibling donor (MSD) allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT). Recently, post-transplantation cyclophosphamide (PTCy) has been shown to be effective in GVHD prevention. In this registry-based study, we compared outcomes of 118 patients treated with PTCy and 1202 patients with CSA/MTX who underwent MSD allo-HCT for acute myelogenous leukemia. In a matched-pair analysis, PTCy was associated with a higher incidence of relapse at 2 years compared with CSA/MTX (41.1% versus 21.3%; P = .039). The incidences of day +180 grade II-IV acute GVHD and 2-year chronic GVHD were comparable in the PTCy and CSA/MTX arms (25.2% versus 25.4% [P = .90] and 42.6% versus 42.6% [P = .84], respectively). Similarly, 2-year leukemia-free survival (LFS; 54.4% versus 74.32%; P = .052), overall survival (OS; 70.6% versus 79.7%; P = .15), and GVHD-free relapse-free survival (GRFS; 38.1% versus 52.5%; P = .49) were not statistically different in the 2 arms. Our data show that GVHD prophylaxis with PTCy is feasible, resulting in similar incidences of GVHD, GRFS, LFS, and OS as seen with conventional CSA/MTX in patients undergoing allo-HCT from an MSD. The higher rate of relapse observed with PTCy needs further evaluation in a prospective study.

Original languageEnglish
JournalTransplantation and Cellular Therapy
Early online date2021
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 2021

Cite this