Allogeneic Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation for Patients with Cutaneous T-cell Lymphoma

Cutaneous T-cell lymphomas (CTCL) are rare non- Hodgkin’s lymphomas with homing preference to the skin. The most common type of CTCL is mycosis fungoides (MF) (1). The clinical course of MF is mostly indolent, but approximately 25% may progress to advanced disease, with a median survival below 4 years. Some subtypes of MF, such as folliculotropic MF, can be very therapyresistant and present with a progressive disease course. Sézary syndrome (SS) and primary skin peripheral T-cell lymphoma, unclassified (PCTCL) are less common variants of CTCL with an aggressive course. SS was previously considered a leukaemic variant of CTCL, but it is today understood to be a subtype of its own, originating primarily from central memory T cells (2). In SS, 5-year survival is 18–20% (3). Also, for advanced stages of MF there are few treatment options. Allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) is a treatment modality for patients with malignant or non-malignant haematological disease. Conditioning regimens may be either myeloablative or non-myeloablative. Patients treated with allo-SCT may experience life-threatening acute or chronic graft-versushost disease (GVHD) or serious infectious complications. Allo-SCT has been used to treat advanced-stage MF and SS (4, 5) but the experience is limited and treatment protocols vary to a great extent. However, long-term follow-up data of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation show that patients with CTCL may benefit from allo-SCT (6). We report here 3 patients with CTCL who received allo-STC, one of whom achieved complete remission. © 2016 The Authors.