First experience of total body irradiation in conditioning regimes for allogenic hematopoietic stem cells transplantation in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Saint Petersburg

Background. Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) is an effective treatment method of refractory and recurrent forms of acute leukemia in children, while the question of choosing a conditioning regimen in order to achieve the best treatment results remains debatable. Conditioning based on total body irradiation (TbI) was confirmed to be most effective in some trials, but there are still issues of overcoming early and late toxicity, as well   as difficulties in planning and routing patients.
Aim. To share the experience of interdisciplinary patient management during the conditioning period with TbI inclusion in Saint petersburg, to evaluate the feasibility, toxicity and effectiveness of the method.
Materials and methods. patients undergoing allo-HSCT for high risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia conditioned either with TbI (n = 12) or chemotherapy (n = 10) were included. Medical data were retrospectively analyzed with an assessment of the following transplant outcomes: HSCT-associated toxicity, the frequency and severity of infectious complications, graft versus host disease, as well as overall and event-free survival rates. we have evaluated radiotherapy plans in order to assess the compliance of radiation exposure with acceptable values for critical organs.
Results. All patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in both groups received appropriate myeloablative conditioning. According to the study results, despite the lack of significance, we obtained differences in HSCT-associated mortality (8.3 and 30 %; p = 0.151), 2-years overall and event-free survival (66 ± 13.6 and 36 ± 16.1 %; p = 0.122) in group with TbI and HdCT respectively. It should be noted that there was a trend towards a decrease of toxic reactions frequency in case of TbI-containing regimens; however we didn’t reveal any significant differences in the number of infectious complications during post-transplant period. The median follow-up was 24.2 months and there were no signs of delayed toxicity.
Conclusion. TbI-based conditioning was well tolerated with a low incidence of early and delayed toxicity, better overall and event-free survival. based on feasibility of TbI in Saint petersburg hospitals it is possible to recommend the method in routine practice, taking into account clinical indications.

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