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Twenty-six bone marrow transplantations were performed at the West Germany Tumour Centre at Essen between December 1975 and December 1981. Three patients had aplastic anaemia, 23 acute leukaemia. Of the leukaemia patients 13 had a recurrence and ten were in full remission at the time of the transplantation. Two of the patients with a recurrence received deep-frozen autologous marrow from the remission phase. One patient with aplastic anaemia had an identical twin as donour, while all other patients received allogeneic marrow from histocompatible family members. Eleven patients are still alive, all three of those with aplastic anaemia, one of those with leukaemia in a recurrence, and seven of those with acute leukaemia in full remission. Two of the survivors have a chronic graft-host reaction, but the others are symptom-free, after an observation period of up to four years. Main causes of death were leukemic recurrence (6), infection (5), and graft-host reaction (2). It would seem that at present bone marrow transplantation offers the best chance of a cure for severe aplastic anaemic and acute leukaemia in adults, but only if transplantation is undertaken early and not in the end-stage of the disease.

Bone-marrow transplantations were performed in 71 patients, 11 with panmyelopathy, 17 with recurrence of acute leukaemia, 25 with acute leukaemia and remission, 18 with chronic myeloid leukaemia. The transplantation was allogenic in 67, autologous in 2, isologous in 2. Eight patients each survived in the panmyelopathy and chronic myeloid leukaemia groups. In the group of patients with acute leukaemia only one patient of those in a recurrence survived the transplantation for several years, but after 6 years there was another recurrence. Of the 20 patients with acute myeloid leukaemia who received the transplantation during their first remission, 11 are still alive. Retransplantation because of the recurrence was employed in one case each of acute and chronic myeloid leukaemia. Main cause of death was interstitial pneumonia with an overall risk of 23%. Only 5% of patients developed severe acute graft-versus-host reaction, grades III-IV. The low incidence of this reaction is possibly due to the strict gnotobiotic measures which in most of the patients led to decontamination of the intestinal tract.