Outcome of hematopoietic cell transplantation in children with sickle cell disease, a single center's experience

Multicenter trials have shown that hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) has an excellent outcome in children with sickle cell disease (SCD). As a single center, we performed a total of 11 transplants in 10 patients (6 males, 4 females) with SCD between 1997 and 2005. Eight patients had hemoglobin SS disease and two patients had HbSβ0 thalassemia. The median age of HCT was 10.1 (range 2.8–16.3) years. All donors were HLA-identical siblings; six patients received bone marrow (BM), two patients received mobilized peripheral blood, one patient received umbilical cord blood (UCB) and one patient received both UCB and BM from the same donor. Myeloablative conditioning regimen consisted of busulfan, horse antithymocyte globulin and cyclophosphamide. One patient had a gradual decrease in donor chimerism to 15% and subsequently received a second bone marrow transplant using a reduced intensity conditioning regimen consisting of alemtuzumab, fludarabine and melphalan leading to stable full engraftment. Currently, 9 out of 10 patients are alive with a median follow-up of 5.5 (range 2.9–11) years. As a single institution's experience with HCT in children with SCD, we report an excellent outcome, and a second HCT may be considered for patients with impending engraftment failure as a cure for SCD.