From January 1978 to December 2001, 133 patients with severe aplastic anemia (SAA) underwent non-T cell-depleted allogeneic bone marrow transplantation from an HLA-identical sibling donor, at the Hospital Saint Louis using either the combination of cyclophosphamide (Cy) and thoracoabdominal irradiation (TAI; n=100) or Cy and antithymocyte globulin (ATG; n=33), as a conditioning regimen. With 13...

M F v t 65-year-old man with a history of recurrent lymphoma status-post matched sibling donor transplant presented ith swelling of the right testicle. Four years earlier, he had resented with right leg swelling, night sweats, and pelvic ain. Computed tomography (CT) scan showed bulky rightided pelvic adenopathy. Biopsy showed diffuse high-grade -cell lymphoma. The remainder of the staging eval...

Previous reports have suggested that a high serum cyclosporine A (CsA) level could result in a lower incidence of acute-graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD). An elevated serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) level has been reported to be an adverse predictor of outcome in stem cell transplantation (SCT) for acute myeloid leukemia. In this study, we retrospectively analyzed the records of 24 patients w...

Aplastic anemia remains a diagnosis of exclusion. Our ability to reliably diagnose, and therefore exclude, a variety of inherited or acquired diseases with similar phenotypes has improved markedly. An efficient diagnostic plan is important because time from diagnosis to treatment is related to outcome regardless of the therapeutic option chosen. HSCT remains the mainstay of therapy for those wi...

BACKGROUND DNA Ligase IV deficiency syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disorder caused by hypomorphic mutations in the DNA ligase IV gene (LIG4). The clinical phenotype shows overlap with a number of other rare syndromes, including Seckel syndrome, Nijmegen breakage syndrome, and Fanconi anemia. Thus the clinical diagnosis is often delayed and established by exclusion. METHODS We describe...

Azoospermia, cryptozoospermia and necrospermia can markedly decrease the ability of males to achieve pregnancy in fertile females. However, patients with these severe conditions still have the option to be treated by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to become biological fathers. This study analyzed the fertilization ability and the developmental viabilities of the derived embryos after I...

Using a case study of a mentally delayed minor sibling donating bone marrow for his older sister, we discuss an alternative ethical justification for minor donation. The accepted justification for permitting minor siblings to donate bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells is that the donor will benefit because of the greater likelihood of survival and less suffering of the sibling. Based on ...

BACKGROUND The ability of human embryos to undergo normal development has been shown previously to be subject to strong paternal (sperm-derived) effects. This study was undertaken to determine whether paternal influences on human embryo quality are detectable as early as the first cell cycle after fertilization. METHODS The quality of zygotes and cleaving embryos resulting from sibling donor ...