Background In severe acquired aplastic anemia, hematopoietic failure is the result of immune mediated destruction of bone marrow stem and progenitor cells. Immunosuppressive therapy with antithymocyte globulin (ATG) plus cyclosporine is an effective alternative to stem cell transplantation and improves blood counts and survival. While horse ATG is standard, rabbit ATG is more potent at depleting peripheral blood lymphocytes and is preferred in other clinical circumstances. Methods From December 2005 to July 2010, we performed a randomized trial comparing these two different ATG formulations at conventional regimens. Patients were treated at a single government facility. Primary outcome was hematologic response at 6 months, as determined by blood counts. The study was designed to accrue 60 patients per arm and powered to detect a 25% difference in response rate. Results There was a large, unexpected difference in hematologic responses at 6 months in favor of horse ATG (68%; 95% confidence interval (CI), 56%–80%) compared to rabbit ATG (37%; 95% CI, 24%–49%; p<0.001). Overall survival at 3 years also differed, with 96% (95% CI, 90%–100%) surviving in the horse ATG group compared to 76% (95% CI, 61%–95%; p=0.04) in the rabbit ATG group when stem cell transplantation was censored, and 94% (95% CI, 88%–100%) for horse ATG and 70% (95% CI, 56%–86%; p=0.008) for rabbit ATG when stem cell transplantation events were not censored. Conclusions In a randomized study, rabbit ATG was markedly inferior to horse ATG as first treatment in severe aplastic anemia as measured by hematologic response and survival.

Mutations in the human telomerase RNA (TERC) occur in autosomal dominant dyskeratosis congenita (DKC). Because of the possibility that TERC mutations might underlie seemingly acquired forms of bone marrow failure, we examined blood samples from a large number of patients with aplastic anemia (AA), paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), and myelodysplasia (MDS).

A serious complication of aplastic anemia (AA) is its evolution to clonal hematologic diseases such as myelodysplasia (MDS) and leukemia, which is usually associated with the appearance of a cytogenetic abnormality in bone marrow cells. We present here an analysis of a cohort of 30 patients with otherwise typical AA in whom clonal karyotypic evolution was observed during frequent periodic marrow examinations. The actuarial risk for this complication has been estimated in other studies at around 15% at 5 years. Conversion from normal to abnormal karyotype occurred at a constant rate after initial diagnosis, with about 50% of cases developing within the first 30 months. Transient chromosomal abnormalities were infrequent. Clinically, AA patients with clonal cytogenetic patterns were heterogenous; a variety of karyotypic defects with numerical and structural abnormalities of chromosome 7 accounted for 40% of all cases followed by trisomy 8, structural and numerical abnor-