Therapy of Hypoplastic Anemia with Bone Marrow Transplantation

The therapy of hypoplastic anemia may be said to be far from satisfactory. In addition to blood transfusions, numerous measures have been tried, including corticotropin (ACTH) and the corticosteroids,¹cobalt,²testosterone,³and splenectomy.⁴In some cases, one or another of these measures proves to be beneficial, but in most, few if any lasting effects are noted. During the past 3 years our laboratory has been investigating the use of bone marrow transplantation as a therapeutic measure in this disease. The purpose of this paper is to report the results of this study. Materials and Methods Patient Material.— Thirty-seven cases of hypoplastic anemia were observed. All patients under study had a disorder characterized by: (1) severe pancytopenia, (2) hypoplasia of the bone marrow with at least 50% replacement of the normal marrow hematopoietic cells by fat, (3) the absence of splenomegaly, and (4) the absence of other