Nasal natural killer (NK)/
T cell lymphoma is a rare entity of
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma which mostly occurs in East Asian countries. The advanced disease above clinical stage III is often refractory to the radiation and
chemotherapies, remission is transient even if achieved, and median survival is about 12 months. Thus the prognosis of advanced NK/
T cell lymphoma is generally poor, however, the promising results of allogeneic
hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for advanced NK/
T cell lymphoma have been recently reported. In most of these cases, stem cell sources were
human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matched donors and alternative sources were seldom used. We report here a case of a 36-year-old woman who was diagnosed as having an
extranodal NK/T cell lymphoma, nasal type. The patient achieved a complete remission after 2 cycles of
chemotherapy including
Carboplatin,
Etoposide,
Ifosfamide, and
Dexamethasone, but 3-months later relapsed during the search for HLA-matched unrelated donors. She received unrelated cord blood
transplantation (CBT) in the second remission achieved by a regimen containing L-
asparaginase. The conditioning regimen was 12 Gy of total body irradiation, high-dose cytarabin and
cyclophosphamide.
FK506 and
methotrexate were used for
graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis. GVHD involving the intestine and the oral mucosa was observed, but improved without additional immunosuppressive therapies. The patient remains in remission 33 months after CBT. Cord blood thus could be an appropriate stem cell source for patients with advanced NK/T
lymphoma who have no HLA matched donors.