Experience with Human Fetal Thymus Transplantation In a Heterotopic Site in Patients with Advanced Lymphoma and Leukopenia

Abstract

Thymus transplantation is a promising investigational therapy for infants born with no thymus. Because of the athymia, these infants lack T cell development and have a severe primary immunodeficiency. Although thymic hypoplasia or aplasia is characteristic of DiGeorge anomaly, in “complete” DiGeorge anomaly, there is no detectable thymus as determined by the absence of naive (CD45RA(+), CD62L(+)) T cells [1]. Research continues on mechanisms underlying immune reconstitution after thymus transplantation. In some infants with profound immunodeficiency and complete DiGeorge syndrome, the transplantation of thymus tissue can restore normal immune function. Early thymus transplantation – before the development of infectious complications – may promote successful immune reconstitution [2]. Complete DiGeorge syndrome is a fatal condition in which infants have no detectable thymus function. The optimal treatment for the immune deficiency of complete DiGeorge syndrome has not been determined. Safety and efficacy of thymus transplantation were evaluated in 12 infants with complete DiGeorge syndrome who had less than 20-fold proliferative responses to phytohemagglutinin. The investigators suggested that thymic transplantation is efficacious, well tolerated, and should be considered as treatment for infants with complete DiGeorge syndrome [3]. In the past 25 years, revelations on the genesis of human cancer have come at an increasing pace. Research on oncogenic infectious agents, especially viruses, has helped us to understand the process of malignant transformation of cells because of the cellular events in viral-driven transformation mirror. Infectious agents, especially viruses, account for several of the most common malignancies – up to 20 % of all cancers.