Background & Aims: Durable remissions of Crohn's Disease (CD) have followed myeloablative conditioning therapy and allogeneic marrow transplantation. For patients with treatment-refractory disease, we used reduced-intensity conditioning to minimize toxicity, marrow from donors with low Polygenic Risk Scores for CD as cell sources, and protracted immune suppression to lower the risk of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Our aim was to achieve durable CD remissions while minimizing transplant-related complications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAggressive immunosuppression followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (aHSCT) can be an effective treatment for severe multiple sclerosis (MS), but not all stages of disease may benefit equally. The case of a 49-year-old woman with advanced secondary-progressive MS whose clinical course was not improved by aHSCT and who seven years after transplantation succumbed to complications of severe MS disease-related disability is presented. Autopsy findings of ongoing neurodegeneration despite only rare infiltrating T-lymphocytes illustrate that late MS disease may not represent a suitable disease stage for aHSCT.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMore effective therapeutic strategies are required for patients with poor-prognosis systemic sclerosis (SSc). A phase 2 single-arm study of high-dose immunosuppressive therapy (HDIT) and autologous CD34-selected hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) was conducted in 34 patients with diffuse cutaneous SSc. HDIT included total body irradiation (800 cGy) with lung shielding, cyclophosphamide (120 mg/kg), and equine antithymocyte globulin (90 mg/kg).
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