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Vitiligo developed in a 50-year-old man 9 months after allogeneic transplantation from his HLA-Identical sister who had had this disease for several years. Our findings suggest adoptive transfer of vitiligo by haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and lend support to the autoimmune nature of this disease.
Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) can transfer autoimmune diseases from donors to recipients, and studies have shown the adoptive transfer of autoimmune thyreoiditis, immune cytopenias, insulin-dependent diabetes, autoimmune polyendocrine failure, and psoriasis developing in recipients of allogeneic BMT, from donors with a history of these diseases.1,2 We report a patient in whom vitiligo developed after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.
A 50-year-old white man was allografted for relapsed Bcl-2 negative stage IV follicle centre cell lymphoma in May, 1995, with 1 .93 x 10^sup 8^ nucleated cells/kg from his HLAidentical sister. The myeloablative regimen consisted of 300 mg/m^sup 2^ 1,3-bis-(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea (BCNU), 1 .5 g/m^sup 2^ cyclophosphamide for 2 days, and 125 mg/m^sup 2^ etoposide every 12 h for 3 consecutive days. The donor had had vitiligo on her back, breast, both forearms, and hands since 1990. The post-transplant course of treatment was not successful, leading to a sustained trilinear engraftment. Ciclosporin and a short course...