Recovery of normal hematopoiesis after severe bone marrow aplasia induced by interferon-α in a patient with chronic myelogenous leukemia

We describe an interesting case of a patient with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) who developed sustained severe bone marrow aplasia after 2 years and 11 months of interferon-α (IFN-α) therapy but demonstrated recovery of normal hematopoiesis when treated with immunosuppressive therapy with granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF). Administration of G-CSF resulted in a partial recovery of hematopoiesis, and after starting immunosuppressive therapy, the patient was no longer dependent on blood transfusions. Moreover, her bone marrow had no Philadelphia chromosome-positive clones. According to the results of the present case, bone marrow recovery can be achieved with immunosuppressive therapy and a fatal outcome avoided, even in CML patients suffering from sustained bone marrow aplasia during IFN-α treatment.