Prospective evaluation of unrelated donor bone marrow transplantation. The International Marrow Unrelated Search and Transplant (IMUST) Study.

The International Marrow Unrelated Search and Transplant (IMUST) Study has prospectively assessed outcome of unrelated donor BMT (UD-BMT) in comparison with a matched cohort of patients treated by HLA-identical sibling BMT (ID-BMT). We report an interim analysis of the first 165 UD-BMT and 368 ID-BMT. Eighty-two percent of UD-BMT pairs were matched by serology for HLA-A, B and DR, 10% were less well matched and HLA matching data was incomplete in 8%. The Kaplan-Meier estimated probability of survival until day 400 was 0.42 (95% confidence limits 0.33-0.51) after UD-BMT and 0.62 (0.56-0.68) after ID-BMT (p=<0.001)