A 21-year-old woman with blastic NK cell leukemia/lymphoma who achieved durable remission with HyperCVAD and unrelated umbilical cord blood transplant.

Blastic natural killer (NK) cell neoplasms are rare, highly aggressive malignancies with a poor prognosis. They have a predilection for the skin, and disseminate rapidly into the blood, bone marrow, lymph nodes, and extranodal organs.1 Because of their rarity, there is no standard treatment. Chemotherapy alone does not result in long-term remissions2; therefore, stem cell transplantation is essential to achieving a durable remission.3 Umbilical cord blood stem cells have emerged as an alternative source of stem cells for patients without suitable donors.4 Here we report a 21-year-old woman diagnosed with blastic NK cell leukemia/lymphoma who is in complete remission 14 months after hyperfractionated cyclophosphamide, vincristine, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone (hyperCVAD) chemotherapy followed by a myeloablative unrelated single umbilical cord blood transplant.