Myeloablative Cord Blood Transplantation for Adults With Hematological Malignancies Using Tacrolimus and Short-Term Methotrexate for Graft-Versus-Host Disease Prophylaxis: Single-Institution Analysis

We studied clinical outcomes of 25 adult patients with hematological malignancies who underwent cord blood transplantation (CBT) after a myeloablative conditioning regimen, including high-dose cytosine arabinoside (CA) (8 g/m²), cyclophosphamide (CY) (120 mg/kg), and total-body irradiation (TBI) (12 Gy). For graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis, all patients received a combination of tacrolimus and short-term methotrexate (sMTX). Neutrophil engraftment was achieved in 20 of 25 patients. Of the 22 evaluable patients, 2 and 7 had grades I and II acute GVHD, respectively, and only 1 developed grade III acute GVHD after discontinuation of tacrolimus due to encephalopathy. Chronic GVHD developed in 13 of 19 evaluable patients, including 4 with the extensive type. However, the Karnofsky scores of survivors at 1 year after CBT were 90% or 100%. Eight of 25 patients died of nonrelapse causes (n = 4) and relapse/progressive disease (n = 4); 17 patients are currently alive with 15 free of disease at the present time (median follow-up, 24 months). The probability of disease-free survival at 2 years among patients with standard risk was 89% and that of high-risk patients was 30%. Transplantation-related mortality within 100 days was 12%. These results suggested that the CA/CY/TBI combination is a promising conditioning regimen for myeloablative CBT. Furthermore, tacrolimus and sMTX seemed to have suppressed severe acute GVHD and chronic GVHD, which may also contribute to the favorable results.