Low-dose anti-thymocyte globulin plus low-dose posttransplant cyclophosphamide as graft-versus-host disease prophylaxis in haploidentical peripheral blood stem cell transplantation combined with unrelated cord blood for patients with hematologic malignancies: a prospective, phase II study

Nowadays, the most wildly used regimens for graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) prophylaxis in haplo-hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (Haplo-HSCT) are based on in vivo T-cell depletion (TCD) with anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) or posttransplant cyclophosphamide (PTCy). To improve the efficiency of GvHD prophylaxis in haploidentical peripheral blood stem cell transplantation combined with unrelated cord blood (Haplo-PBSCT-Cord), a novel regimen, which is composed of low dose of ATG (5 mg/kg) and low-dose PTCy (50 mg/kg) for GvHD prophylaxis, was evaluated in a prospective phase II clinical trial (Clinicaltrials.org NCT03395860). Thirty-two patients diagnosed with hematological malignancies were enrolled in this trial. All patients received myeloablative conditioning regimens except for three patients. The cumulative incidences (CIs) of grades II-IV and III-IV acute GvHD were 19.4% (95% CI, 5.5−33.3%) and 6.9% (95% CI, 0−16.3%) by day 100, respectively. The 1-year probability of relapse, disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) was 25.1% (95% CI, 7.3−42.9%), 59% (95% CI, 33.3−84.7%) and 78.4% (95% CI, 63−93.8%), respectively. The CIs of CMV and EBV reactivation by day 180 were 37.5% (95% CI, 19.8−55.2%) and 40.6% (95% CI, 22.6−58.6%), respectively. The results suggested that low-dose ATG with low-dose PTCy as GvHD prophylaxis in Haplo-PBSCT-Cord had promising activity.