Four cases of acute graft-versus-host disease have now been reported in patients who have received transplants of syngeneic bone marrow (1, 2). This phenomenon could be explained if graft-versus-host disease were due to an imbalance of lymphocyte subsets regardless of donor-recipient histocompatibility (3). We have recently seen a patient with chronic granulocytic leukemia in transformation who developed a syndrome resembling acute
Figure 1. Clinical and hematological course of patient with "graft-versus-host disease." DNR = daunorubicin; Ara-C = cytarabine; 6TG = 6-thioguanine; platelets = donor platelet transfusions (irradiated to 1500 rad); WBC = donor granulocyte transfusions (irradiated to 1500 rad); Hb = hemoglobin; BM = bone marrow biopsies; CP = chronic phase.
graft-versus-host disease after autografting with stored buffy-coat leukocytes.
A 23-year-old woman was found to have Philadelphia-chromosome-positive chronic granulocytic leukemia in August 1978. Peripheral blood cells were collected by leukapheresis and cryopreserved. She was treated with busulphan, and splenectomy was