Granulocyte transfusions in treatment of infections in patients with acute leukaemia and aplastic anaemia

Abstract

By use of the continuous-flow blood-cell separator 137 bags of granulocyte-rich plasma were obtained from normal donors (59 bags) and patients with chronic granulocytic leukaemia (C.G.L.) (78 bags). Eighty-nine courses of granulocyte transfusion therapy consisting of 1 or more such bags were administered to forty-one ABO-compatible patients with acute leukaemia or aplastic anaemia, who had definite or probable infections that had failed to respond to antibiotics. The fever resolved after 67% of courses of transfusions of two or more bags but after only 24% of transfusions of single bags of granulocytes (p less than 0-01), and this result suggests that this form of treatment is in general effective. Granulocytes from C.G.L. and normal donors were equally effective, although transfusion reactions were commoner after C.G.L. cells (33% versus 12%, respectively, p less than 0-05). C.G.L. grafts, and probable graft-versus-host disease, occurred in three recipients of unirradiated C.G.L. cells. Recipients of normal cells whose fevers resolved received on average four times as many granulocytes per sq.m. as those fevers did not respond. No such difference was found when C.G.L. cells were used. The fever was more likely to resolve in recipients with established or clinically probable bacterial or fungal infections than in those with fever of uncertain cause. Fever was less likely to resolve in recipients with peripheral blood granulocyte counts before transfusion of greater than 1000 per mul. It is concluded that granulocyte transfusion therapy is a valuable advance in the management of infections in neutropenic patients.