Donor lymphocyte infusions after haploidentical stem cell transplantation with PTCY: A study on behalf of the EBMT cellular therapy & immunobiology working party

Donor lymphocyte infusion (DLI) is a treatment option to prevent or treat relapse after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). We here report data for 173 patients who received one or multiple DLIs after haploidentical-HCT with post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PTCY) at 47 EBMT centers from 2009 to 2018. Indication for DLI was: prophylactic for 59(34.3%), preemptive for 20(11.6%), and therapeutic for 93(54.1%). For the prophylactic group, the median number of DLIs was 1 (IQR:1–2.5) with a median first dose of 0.1 × 106 CD3+ T cell/kg, for the preemptive 2 (IQR:1–3) with 0.5 × 106 CD3+ T cell/kg, for the therapeutic 1 (IQR:1–3) with 1 × 106CD3+ Tcell/kg, respectively. OS after first DLI was 61% (46–75%) for prophylactic, 40% (19–61%) for preemptive, and 22% (13–31%) for therapeutic. CI of II-IV aGVHD and cGVHD was 17%(7–27%) and 53% (40–67%) for the prophylactic, 20% (2–38%) and 21% (3–39%) for the preemptive, 17% (9–24%) and 24% (15–33%) for the therapeutic group, respectively. Our data show great variability in the indications and modalities of DLI across responding EBMT centers. Survival rates remain relatively low in patients with active disease. While the cumulative incidence of aGVHD appears acceptable, we showed a high incidence proportion of cGVHD in the prophylactic group, compared with preemptive and therapeutic DLI. These data should be investigated further in prospective clinical trials.