ABSTRACT
Given justified concerns of high treatment-related mortality in a setting of unproven efficacy, few have attempted or even considered allotransplantation in patients with nonhematological malignancies. However, the demonstration of potent antileukemia effects following allogeneic BMT for a diversity of hematological malignancies [1-4] begs the question whether similar beneficial alloresponses can be used to eradicate solid tumors. From our knowledge of the GVL response, we can define the characteristics of a tumor that should make it susceptible to a graft-versus-tumor (GVT) effect. Indeed, allograft studies in mouse tumor models described by Slavin et al. in Chapter 12 demonstrate unequivocal GVT effects. Nevertheless, human solid tumors and hematological malignancies differ in some quite fundamental ways. Assumptions about GVT made by analogy with the GVL effect may not always be valid. In Table 1 the arguments for and against a GVT effect are set out.
