Worsening bradycardia following antithymocyte globulin treatment of severe aplastic anemia.

Immunosuppressive regimens, which include antithymocyte globulin (ATG), are widely used for the treatment of severe aplastic anemia (SAA). However, bradycardia has been reported only as a rare side effect of ATG therapy in the manufacturer's product information and, in rare cases, in the adult literature. We present an adolescent with SAA and preexisting bradycardia who underwent immunosuppression therapy with ATG, methylprednisolone, and tacrolimus and developed profound sinus bradycardia with successive doses of ATG.

Therapy of severe aplastic anemia with anti-human thymocyte globulin (ATGAM) with and without HLA-haploidentical bone-marrow infusion

Six patients with severe aplastic anemia treated with horse anti-human thymocyte globulin (ATG) and androgen. Four of these patients were only given ATG (ATGAMR), 16 mg/Kg/dose x 10 doses. The remaining two cases received an infusion of maternal HLA-haploidentical marrow cells following ATG therapy. One patient had a complete response, three had a partial response, one showed minimal improvement and two were non-responders. The two patients who received the additional haploidentical marrow cells showed a hematologic recovery sooner than the ATG alone cases. The toxicity of the ATG therapy was tolerable. Long term follow up of there patients and further studies of this treatment in aplastic anemia with pediatric age group are under way.