Ten-year follow-up of pediatric patients with non-hodgkin lymphoma treated with allogeneic or autologous stem cell transplantation

Background: Autologous or allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (SCT) is often considered in patients with relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) but there are limited data on the use of SCT for the treatment of NHL in the pediatric setting. Procedure: To evaluate the role of SCT for children with NHL, we reviewed 36 consecutive pediatric patients with NHL who underwent an allogeneic (n=21) or autologous (n=15) SCT at our institution between 1982 and 2004. Pathologic classification included: lymphoblastic lymphoma (n=12), Burkitt lymphoma (BL) (n=5), diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (n=4), anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) (n=13), peripheral T cell lymphoma (n=1), and undifferentiated NHL (n=1). Donor source for allogeneic-SCT recipients was an HLA-matched related donor (n=15), a matched unrelated donor (n=4), or a mismatched donor (related n=1; unrelated n=1). Twenty-eight patients (78%) had chemotherapy responsive disease at the time of transplant (either CR or PR). Results: Overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were 55% and 53% with a median follow-up of 9.75 years. Outcomes were similar in patients receiving autologous and allogeneic-SCT (DFS 53% in both groups). Patients with ALCL had a DFS of 76.9%. In contrast, of five patients transplanted for BL, none survived. DFS among patients with chemotherapy sensitive disease was 61%, compared with 25% among patients with relapsed/refractory disease (P=0.019). Conclusions: Allogeneic and autologous SCT offer the prospect of durable, disease-free survival for a significant proportion of pediatric patients with relapsed or refractory NHL. Survival is superior among patients with chemotherapy sensitive disease. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2013;60:2018-2024.