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Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Stem cell transplant offers hope for rare, aggressive lymphoma
A new retrospective study finds that allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) may be a meaningful treatment option for hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma, a rare and hard-to-treat cancer. Over half of patients who received the transplant were still alive at 3 years. Key predictors of better survival included normal LDH levels at diagnosis and achieving complete remission before transplant.
Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma (HSTCL) is one of the toughest cancers to treat — it's rare, aggressive, and largely resistant to standard chemotherapy. But a new retrospective study published in The Lancet Haematology suggests that allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) could be an effective, potentially curative option, even for patients who don't respond to chemo.
The study analyzed 121 patients registered with the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation and cooperating centers in China and South Korea. Of these, 94 received allo-HSCT and 27 received autologous HSCT. With a median follow-up of 4.5 years, allo-HSCT patients showed meaningful long-term survival, while autologous transplant patients faced a considerably higher relapse risk.
Why it matters: HSTCL has no established standard of care, leaving clinicians with few evidence-based options. This study provides the largest dataset to date supporting allo-HSCT as a preferred transplant strategy, and identifies actionable prognostic markers — LDH levels and pre-transplant remission status — that can guide treatment decisions.
