In this retrospective study, the impact of KIR/HLA inc. on clinical outcomes and NK cell reconstitution was studied in a cohort of 51 consecutive patients receiving a T cell-replete haploidentical allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation after a reduced-intensity conditioning using peripheral blood stem cells as the source of the graft and PTCy as graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) prophylaxis.
Further studies are necessary to determine the risk of GVHD and to elucidate the association between KIR ligand incompatibility and graft failure in homo-to-hetero CBT.
Patients with all KIR ligands present (n=13) had a significantly higher (p=0.04) incidence of acute graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD) than patients with one or more KIR ligands missing (n=37).
Patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML, n = 612) lacking ≥ 1 KIR ligands experienced higher grade III to IV acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) (HR, 1.6; 95% CI, 1.16 to 2.28; P = .005) compared to those with all ligands present.
The killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) genes encode a family of receptors expressed on NK and T cells and are supposed to play a significant role in GVHD and HCV infection.
In this study, the association of KIR genes with acute graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) was investigated in 44 pairs of leukemia patients and their unrelated donors for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT).
We investigated the influence of killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) genes, based on the genotypes of inhibitory or activating KIR, in stem cell recipients with acute myelogenous leukemia and their human leukocyte antigen-matched sibling donors on acute graft-versus host disease (GVHD) after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.