Myeloablative chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation can lead to successful postengraftment mobilization of hematopoietic progenitors to support planned subsequent cycle(s) of high-dose chemotherapy and autografting in a patient with relapsed germ-cell tumor

Salvage high-dose chemotherapy (HDC) together with autologous hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation (ASCT) represents a curative treatment option for patients with relapsed/refractory germ-cell tumor. Usually, 2–3 cycles of HDC are administered with encouraging results, and a sizeable percentage of patients experience long-term survival. However, an appreciable number of patients fail to mobilize adequate numbers of HSCs, adequate to support more than one HDC cycle. There have been no data so far on remobilization of HSCs after prior autografting. We report a unique case with relapsed germ-cell tumor that had undergone the first cycle of HDC with myeloablative doses of carboplatin–etoposide, and HSCs were mobilized successfully in the early posthematopoietic engraftment period to support further cycles of HDC. Four weeks after the first ASCT, an identical second cycle of myeloablative HDC was administered and rescued successfully with the HSCs collected after engraftment following the previous HDC cycle. The present case report illustrates that HSCs can be mobilized successfully in the early postengraftment period after myeloablative doses of carboplatin–etoposide, and these cells can be applied as the sole source of hematopoietic rescue in planned sequential cycles of myeloablative HDC, leading to successful multilineage engraftment. Provided that more extensive experience is gathered in future studies in large numbers of patients, this strategy could prove helpful in patients who cannot initially collect sufficient HSC numbers, before the first autografting cycle, and are in need of sequential HDC+ASCT cycles. A detailed literature review is provided to highlight the uniqueness of the presented case.

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