Detailed monitoring of hematopoietic chimerism in a child treated by adoptive immunotherapy for high risk of relapse after BMT for acute myeloid leukemia.

We report a case of a 13-year-old boy who was transplanted for relapse of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). A detailed study of hematopoietic chimerism was performed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) at very short time intervals. We used discontinuation of post-transplant immunosuppression and donor lymphocyte infusions (DLI) in order to prevent leukemia relapse that was indicated by a progressive increase in autologous hematopoiesis. Despite the fact that the boy relapsed 10 months after BMT, we could see a significant influence of adoptive immunotherapy on the mixed chimerism status during the post-transplant period.