Decitabine as a conditioning regimen in haploidentical stem cell transplantation for refractory acute myeloid leukaemia

WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVE: Chemotherapy can increase treatment-related mortality associated with future haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). There is usually insufficient time to find a suitable unrelated donor for these patients. We report on the use of decitabine, a DNA methyltransferase inhibitor as a conditioning regimen for a patient undergoing HSCT. CASE SUMMARY: Our patient was a 21-year-old male diagnosed with AML-M1 with 84·5% blast cells and a normal karyotype. His risk stratum was intermediate, without specific mutations of FLT3/ITD, NPM1, CEBPA and C-kit. He underwent successful haploidentical HSCT using decitabine, a conditioning regimen. WHAT IS NEW AND CONCLUSION: We present the first report of a patient with refractory AML (with 58% blast cells) treated successfully with decitabine as a conditioning regimen in haploidentical HSCT.