Haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for lymphoma with monosomy of chromosome 6 (loss of heterozygosity in the HLA region) - Who should be a donor?

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) from an HLA haploidentical family donor is an option for patients who do not have a full HLA matched donor and lack the time to find an unrelated one.  Furthermore, it may facilitate a powerful graft versus leukemia/lymphoma (GVL) effect to help combat hematological malignancies by directly targeting the mismatched HLA expressed on leukemia/lymphoma cells. [3] On the contrary, leukemia/lymphoma cells escape from the surveillance of the donor-derived GVL effect by losing the target HLA (mismatched HLA in GVH direction). This mechanism has been called loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in the HLA gene region on chromosome 6. Taking  the above into account, in this case report, we present a case of lymphoma with monosomy 6, which means natural LOH of HLA, and suggest that selection of a haploidentical family donor matched with the missing HLA haplotype seems to be very effective (read more) Print this post