Allogeneic marrow engraftment following whole body irradiation in a patient with leukemia. 1970.

T HE DEMONSTRATION OF A TRANSIENT MARROW GRAFT in a leukemic patient in 1956,’ and the treatment of victims of an irradiation accident in 1958,2 initiated a number of attempts to utilize allogeneic marrow grafts in patients with marrow failure or with leukemia. Recent reviews3’4 of those attempts show a notable lack of success with death due to failure of engraftment or to graft-vs-host disease. Survivors showed a transient engraftment with reversion to host marrow,3 with the exception of the one long-term engraftment reported by Math#{233} et al.5 These previous attempts to transplant marrow in man may have failed because (1) donors were not selected on the basis of histocompatibility testing, (2) patients were terminal at the time of transplantation in most cases, and (3) isoimmunization against transplantation antigens had been induced by multiple prior transfusions.