Donor-Cell Leukemia after Bone Marrow Transplantation for Severe Aplastic Anemia

ACUTE leukemia after bone marrow transplantation for severe aplastic anemia is a rare event.1 , 2 In previous reports, such leukemia has been shown to originate in host cells.2 We report the development of acute monoblastic leukemia in donor cells nine months after transplantation in a patient with aplastic anemia. We used cytogenetic analysis and a novel application of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to show that the leukemia was of donor-cell origin. The donor was hematologically normal at the time of transplantation and has remained so to the time of this writing 18 months later. Case Report A 19-year-old man presented . . .