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Improved outcomes over time and higher mortality in CMV seropositive allogeneic stem cell transplantation patients with COVID-19; An infectious disease working party study from the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation registry
Ljungman, P., Tridello, G., Piñana, J. L., Ciceri, F., Sengeloev, H., Kulagin, A., Mielke, S., Yegin, Z. A., Collin, M., Einardottir, S., et al
Frontiers in immunology. 2023;14:1125824
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Editor's Choice
Abstract
INTRODUCTION COVID-19 has been associated with high morbidity and mortality in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (allo-HCT) recipients. METHODS This study reports on 986 patients reported to the EBMT registry during the first 29 months of the pandemic. RESULTS The median age was 50.3 years (min - max; 1.0 - 80.7). The median time from most recent HCT to diagnosis of COVID-19 was 20 months (min - max; 0.0 - 383.9). The median time was 19.3 (0.0 - 287.6) months during 2020, 21.2 (0.1 - 324.5) months during 2021, and 19.7 (0.1 - 383.9) months during 2022 (p = NS). 145/986 (14.7%) patients died; 124 (12.6%) due to COVID-19 and 21 of other causes. Only 2/204 (1%) fully vaccinated patients died from COVID-19. There was a successive improvement in overall survival over time. In multivariate analysis, increasing age (p<.0001), worse performance status (p<.0001), contracting COVID-19 within the first 30 days (p<.0001) or 30 - 100 days after HCT (p=.003), ongoing immunosuppression (p=.004), pre-existing lung disease (p=.003), and recipient CMV seropositivity (p=.004) had negative impact on overall survival while patients contracting COVID-19 in 2020 (p<.0001) or 2021 (p=.027) had worse overall survival than patients with COVID-19 diagnosed in 2022. DISCUSSION Although the outcome of COVID-19 has improved, patients having risk factors were still at risk for severe COVID-19 including death.
PICO Summary
Population
Adults and children who tested PCR positive to COVID-19 after previous allogeneic transplant, and were reported to the EBMT registry (n=986)
Intervention
Analysis of the outcome of COVID-19 during important phases of the COVID-19.
Comparison
Patients contracting COVID-19 at different time points of the pandemic were compared
Outcome
The median age was 50.3 years (min - max; 1.0 - 80.7). The median time from most recent HCT to diagnosis of COVID-19 was 20 months (min - max; 0.0 - 383.9). The median time was 19.3 (0.0 - 287.6) months during 2020, 21.2 (0.1 - 324.5) months during 2021, and 19.7 (0.1 - 383.9) months during 2022 (p = NS). 145/986 (14.7%) patients died; 124 (12.6%) due to COVID-19 and 21 of other causes. Only 2/204 (1%) fully vaccinated patients died from COVID-19. There was a successive improvement in overall survival over time. In multivariate analysis, increasing age, worse performance status, contracting COVID-19 within the first 30 days or 30 - 100 days after HCT, ongoing immunosuppression, pre-existing lung disease, and recipient CMV seropositivity had negative impact on overall survival while patients contracting COVID-19 in 2020 or 2021 had worse overall survival than patients with COVID-19 diagnosed in 2022.
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Improved outcome of patients with graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation for hematologic malignancies over time: an EBMT mega-file study
Greinix, H. T., Eikema, D. J., Koster, L., Penack, O., Yakoub-Agha, I., Montoto, S., Chabannon, C., Styczynski, J., Nagler, A., Robin, M., et al
Haematologica. 2021
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Editor's Choice
Abstract
Acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD) remains a major threat to successful outcome after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Advances in prophylaxis and supportive care have taken place over the years. The aim of this study is to test whether incidence and mortality of aGvHD have been reduced over time. 102 557 patients with a median age of 47.6 years with malignancies after first allogeneic sibling or unrelated donor (URD) transplant were studied in the following periods: 1990-1995, 1996-2000, 2001-2005, 2006-2010, 2011-2015. Findings: 100-day-incidences of aGvHD grades II-IV decreased from 40%, to 38%, 32%, 29% and 28% over calendar time (p.
PICO Summary
Population
Patients undergoing first allogeneic sibling or unrelated donor transplant (URD) between 1990 and 2015 (n=102 557)
Intervention
Registry data study assessing incidence of acute GvHD (aGvHD)
Comparison
Patients were compared in the following time periods: 1990-1995, 1996-2000, 2001-2005, 2006-2010, 2011-2015
Outcome
In multivariate analysis URD, not in CR at transplant or untreated, and female donor for male recipient were associated with increased risk whereas use of ATG/alemtuzumab decreased aGvHD incidence. Median follow-up was 214, 169, 127, 81 and 30 months for periods analyzed. 3-year-survival after aGvHD grades II-IV increased significantly from 38% to 40%, 43%, 44%, and 45%. In multivariate analysis URD, not in CR at transplant, peripheral blood as stem cell source, female donor for male recipient, and use of ATG/alemtuzumab were associated with increased mortality whereas reduced-intensity conditioning with lower one. Mortality increased with increasing patients‘ age but decreased in the recent cohorts.
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Legionellosis after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
Mikulska, M., Tridello, G., Hoek, J., Gil, L., Yañez, L., Labussière-Wallet, H., Passweg, J., Xhaard, A., Pioltelli, P., Caillot, D., et al
Bone marrow transplantation. 2021
Abstract
Limited data are available on legionellosis after hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). The aim of this study was to report the cases of legionellosis and to identify predictors of legionellosis, legionellosis-associated death, and non-relapse mortality (NRM). All cases of post-HSCT legionellosis from the EBMT registry were included and matched with controls in a 3:1 ratio for the analyses of risk factors. In the years 1995-2016, 80 cases from 52 centers in 14 countries were identified (mainly from France, Italy, and Spain). Median time from HSCT to legionellosis was 203 days (range, 0-4099); 19 (23.8%) patients developed early legionellosis (within-day +30 post-HSCT). Patients were mainly male (70%), after allogeneic HSCT (70%), with acute leukemia (27.5%), lymphoma (23.8%), or multiple myeloma (21.3%), and the median age of 46.6 (range, 7.2-68.2). Predictors of legionellosis were allogeneic HSCT (OR?=?2.27, 95%CI:1.08-4.80, p?=?0.03) and recent other infection (OR?=?2.96, 95%CI:1.34-6.52, p?=?0.007). Twenty-seven (33.8%) patients died due to legionellosis (44% after early legionellosis), NRM was 50%. Predictors of NRM were female sex (HR?=?2.19, 95%CI:1.13-4.23, p?=?0.02), early legionellosis (HR?=?2.24, 95%CI:1.13-4.46, p?=?0.02), and south-eastern geographical region (HR?=?2.16, 95%CI:1.05-4.44, p?=?0.036). In conclusion, legionellosis is a rare complication after HSCT, mainly allogeneic, occurring frequently within 30 days after HSCT and associated with high mortality.
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Impact of early candidemia on the long-term outcome of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant in non-leukemic patients: an outcome analysis on behalf of IDWP-EBMT
Cesaro, S., Tridello, G., Knelange, N. S., Blijlevens, N., Martin, M., Snowden, J. A., Malladi, R., Ljungman, P., Deconinck, E., Gedde-Dahl, T., et al
Bone marrow transplantation. 2021
Abstract
We assessed the incidence and outcome of early candidemia after hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). The analysis included all first HSCTs performed from 2000 to 2015 in adult and pediatric patients with a non-leukemic disease and recorded in the EBMT registry. Overall survival (OS), non-relapse mortality (NRM), and relapse mortality (RM) were evaluated. Candidemia was diagnosed in 420 of 49,852 patients at a median time of 17 days post HSCT (range 0-100), the cumulative incidence being 0.85%. In 65.5% of episodes, candidemia occurred by day 30 after HSCT. The mortality rate by day 7 was 6.2%, whereas 100-day NRM was higher (HR 3.47, p?0.0001), and 100-day OS was lower (HR 3.22, p?0.0001) than that of patients without candidemia. After a median follow-up of 4.3 years, 5-year OS, NRM, and RM for patients with and without candidemia were 50.5% vs. 60.8%, p?0.0001, 28.2% vs.18.8%, p?0.0001, and 25.3% vs. 27.2%, p?=?0.4, respectively. In conclusion, in non-leukemic transplant patients, the occurrence of an early episode of candidemia is rare but it is still associated with a negative effect on the outcome.
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COVID-19 and stem cell transplantation; results from an EBMT and GETH multicenter prospective survey
Ljungman, P., de la Camara, R., Mikulska, M., Tridello, G., Aguado, B., Zahrani, M. A., Apperley, J., Berceanu, A., Bofarull, R. M., Calbacho, M., et al
Leukemia. 2021;:1-10
Abstract
This study reports on 382 COVID-19 patients having undergone allogeneic (n = 236) or autologous (n = 146) hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) reported to the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) or to the Spanish Group of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (GETH). The median age was 54.1 years (1.0-80.3) for allogeneic, and 60.6 years (7.7-81.6) for autologous HCT patients. The median time from HCT to COVID-19 was 15.8 months (0.2-292.7) in allogeneic and 24.6 months (-0.9 to 350.3) in autologous recipients. 83.5% developed lower respiratory tract disease and 22.5% were admitted to an ICU. Overall survival at 6 weeks from diagnosis was 77.9% and 72.1% in allogeneic and autologous recipients, respectively. Children had a survival of 93.4%. In multivariate analysis, older age (p = 0.02), need for ICU (p < 0.0001) and moderate/high immunodeficiency index (p = 0.04) increased the risk while better performance status (p = 0.001) decreased the risk for mortality. Other factors such as underlying diagnosis, time from HCT, GVHD, or ongoing immunosuppression did not significantly impact overall survival. We conclude that HCT patients are at high risk of developing LRTD, require admission to ICU, and have increased mortality in COVID-19.
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How much has allogeneic stem cell transplant-related mortality improved since the 1980s? A retrospective analysis from the EBMT
Penack, O., Peczynski, C., Mohty, M., Yakoub-Agha, I., Styczynski, J., Montoto, S., Duarte, R. F., Kröger, N., Schoemans, H., Koenecke, C., et al
Blood advances. 2020;4(24):6283-6290
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Abstract
We performed a study to find out how advances in modern medicine have improved the mortality risk of allogeneic stem cell transplantation. We analyzed major transplantation outcome parameters in adult patients on the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) registry who had hematologic malignancies and had received transplants from matched sibling donors. We performed multivariate analyses using the Cox proportional-hazards model including known risk factors for nonrelapse mortality and a matched-pairs analysis. We identified 38?800 patients who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Considerable changes in patient characteristics have occurred in the past decades, such as older age, different underlying diseases, and a higher proportion of patients with advanced disease. Major reasons for transplantation-related death in the 1980s were infectious complications and graft-versus-host disease. Nonrelapse mortality, measured at 1 year after transplantation, has decreased over time: 29.7% from 1980 through 1989, 24.4% from 1990 through 1999, 14.8% from 2000 through 2009, and 12.2% from 2010 through 2016. On multivariate analysis, the year of transplantation was associated with reduced nonrelapse mortality (P < .0001; hazard ratio [HR] [95% confidence interval (CI)], 0.8 [0.79-0.82], for 5-year intervals) and decreased overall mortality (P < .0001; HR [95% CI], 0.87 [0.86-0.88]. In the matched-pairs analysis of 3718 patients in each group, nonrelapse mortality at 1 year was 24.4% in the 1990s and 9.5% from 2013 through 2016 (P < .0001; HR [95% CI], 0.39 [0.34-0.43]). Transplantation-related mortality has decreased significantly in the past 40 years. These favorable data facilitate evidence-based treatment decisions on transplantation indications in the context of the availability of novel immunotherapies.
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Myeloablative conditioning for allo-HSCT in pediatric ALL: FTBI or chemotherapy?-A multicenter EBMT-PDWP study
Willasch, A. M., Peters, C., Sedlacek, P., Dalle, J. H., Kitra-Roussou, V., Yesilipek, A., Wachowiak, J., Lankester, A., Prete, A., Hamidieh, A. A., et al
Bone marrow transplantation. 2020
Abstract
Although most children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) receive fractionated total body irradiation (FTBI) as myeloablative conditioning (MAC) for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), it is an important matter of debate if chemotherapy can effectively replace FTBI. To compare outcomes after FTBI versus chemotherapy-based conditioning (CC), we performed a retrospective EBMT registry study. Children aged 2-18 years after MAC for first allo-HSCT of bone marrow (BM) or peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) from matched-related (MRD) or unrelated donors (UD) in first (CR1) or second remission (CR2) between 2000 and 2012 were included. Propensity score weighting was used to control pretreatment imbalances of the observed variables. 3.054 patients were analyzed. CR1 (1.498): median follow-up (FU) after FTBI (1.285) and CC (213) was 6.8 and 6.1 years. Survivals were not significantly different. CR2 (1.556): median FU after FTBI (1.345) and CC (211) was 6.2 years. Outcomes after FTBI were superior as compared with CC with regard to overall survival (OS), leukemia-free survival (LFS), relapse incidence (RI), and nonrelapse mortality (NRM). However, we must emphasize the preliminary character of the results of this retrospective "real-world-practice" study. These findings will be prospectively assessed in the ALL SCTped 2012 FORUM trial.
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Infectious Complications in Patients With Multiple Myeloma After High-Dose Chemotherapy Followed by Autologous Stem Cell Transplant: Nationwide Study of the Infectious Complications Study Group of the Polish Adult Leukemia Group
Waszczuk-Gajda, A., Drozd-Sokolowska, J., Basak, G. W., Piekarska, A., Mensah-Glanowska, P., Sadowska-Klasa, A., Wierzbowska, A., Rzepecki, P., Tomaszewska, A., Manko, J., et al
Transplantation proceedings. 2020
Abstract
BACKGROUND Multiple myeloma (MM) has become a chronic disease in majority of patients, and remission consolidation with autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant (ASCT) remains the backbone of treatment in transplant-eligible patients. OBJECTIVE The aim of this multicenter cross-sectional nationwide retrospective study was to evaluate the epidemiology, etiology, and outcome of infections in patients with MM undergoing ASCT in 13 Polish transplant centers, carried out on behalf of the Infectious Complications Study Group of the Polish Adult Leukemia Group. METHODS A total number of consecutive 1374 patients with MM treated in Polish adult transplant centers from 2012 to 2014 were followed for infectious complications up to day +100 after ASCT in nationwide study. RESULTS Altogether 490 infection episodes in 336 patients (49% male, aged 21-72 years) were reported, including 145 episodes of neutropenic fever (103 patients) and 34 episodes of clinically documented infections (CDIs) (27 patients). Among microbiologically confirmed infections there were 251 episodes of bacterial infections (180 patients), 42 episodes of fungal infections (38 patients), and 18 episodes of viral infections (17 patients). The overall incidence of infections reached 13.1% for bacterial, 3.6% for fungal, and 1.3% for viral infections. There were 16 cases of infection-related deaths after ASCT (1.2%). The mortality risk factors included multidrug-resistant bacteria etiology (odds ratio [OR], 3.5; P = .033), coexistence of bacterial and fungal infection (OR, 6.3; P = .002), and CDI (OR, 5.5; P = .007). CONCLUSION ASCT in patients with MM was connected with low risk of life-threatening infections. However, multidrug-resistant bacteria bacterial etiology, mixed etiology, and CDI increased the risk of fatal outcome.
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Outcomes of allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation from HLA-matched and alternative donors: a European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation registry retrospective analysis
Shouval, R., Fein, J. A., Labopin, M., Kroger, N., Duarte, R. F., Bader, P., Chabannon, C., Kuball, J., Basak, G. W., Dufour, C., et al
The Lancet. Haematology. 2019
Abstract
BACKGROUND The introduction of donors other than HLA-matched siblings has been a pivotal change in stem cell transplantation. We aimed to assess the evolution of outcomes within donor groups over time and explore whether donor-recipient HLA disparity might be advantageous in patients with aggressive disease. METHODS In this retrospective, multicentre study, we assessed the outcomes for adult patients (≥18 years) with haematological malignancies who underwent their first allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) between Jan 3, 2001, and Dec 31, 2015, and were reported to the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation. The donor types studied were matched sibling, matched unrelated, mismatched unrelated, haploidentical, and cord blood donors. Unrelated non-cord-blood donors and recipients were typed at the allelic level for HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C, and HLA-DRB1. We evaluated trends in overall survival, non-relapse mortality, relapse incidence, progression-free survival, acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), and GVHD-free and relapse-free survival following transplantation from various donor types (matched sibling, matched unrelated, mismatched unrelated, haploidentical, and umbilical cord blood), and compared transplantation outcomes across three epochs (epoch 1: 2001-05; epoch 2: 2006-10; and epoch 3: 2011-15). We used Kaplan-Meier estimators for survival probabilities and cumulative incidence functions accounting for competing risks for probabilities of GHVD, relapse, and non-relapse mortality, using multiple imputations by chained equations to deal with missing data. In epoch 3, we directly compared outcomes by donor group, stratified by a novel three-level disease-risk scheme. FINDINGS We included 106 188 patients in our analysis. The median follow-up was 4.1 years (IQR 1.7-7.7). Overall survival at 3 years increased with all donor groups between epochs 2 and 3 (matched sibling: 54.0% [95% CI 53.1-54.8] to 54.6% [53.6-55.6]; matched unrelated: 49.1% [48.0-50.2] to 51.6% [50.7-52.6]; mismatched unrelated: 37.4% [35.7-39.2] to 41.3% [39.5-43.1]; haploidentical: 34.5% [31.4-37.9] to 44.2% [42.1-46.3]; and cord blood 36.3% [33.9-39] to 43.7% [40.8-46.8]). Improvement in overall survival seems to be driven by a reduction in non-relapse mortality, except in cord blood HSCT recipients, who had a lower relapse incidence. Comparing donor groups across disease-risk strata using the novel disease-risk scheme, overall survival among recipients of matched sibling transplantations remained better than other donor groups except in high-risk disease, where overall survival with matched unrelated transplantations was not different. INTERPRETATION Overall survival following allogeneic stem cell transplantation is improving with substantial progress among recipients of haploidentical and cord blood HSCT. Nonetheless, the traditional donor hierarchy of matched sibling donors followed by matched unrelated donors and then other donors holds. Our findings warrant further investigation and could inform decision making and the development of donor-selection algorithms. FUNDING The Varda and Boaz Dotan Research Center in Haemato-Oncology, Tel Aviv University, and the Shalvi Foundation for Research.
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Incidence and outcome of Kaposi sarcoma after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: a retrospective analysis and a review of the literature, on behalf of infectious diseases working party of EBMT
Cesaro, S., Tridello, G., van der Werf, S., Bader, P., Socie, G., Ljungman, P., McQuaker, G., Giardino, S., Uckan-Cetinkaya, D., Anagnostopoulos, A., et al
Bone marrow transplantation. 2019
Abstract
The incidence, the clinical characteristics, and the outcome of Kaposi sarcoma (KS) in patients after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) were assessed. During the period 1987-2018, 13 cases of KS were diagnosed, 3 females and 10 males, median age of 50 years, median time from HSCT of 7 months. KS had an incidence of 0.17% in allogeneic and 0.05% in autologous HSCT. HHV-8 was documented in eight of nine tumor tissue samples assessed. The organ involvement was: skin in nine, lymph nodes in six, oral cavity in four, and visceral in three patients, respectively; seven patients had >1 organ involved. Five patients had immunosuppression withdrawn, whereas four and three patients received radiotherapy and chemotherapy, respectively. Eight patients are alive (median follow-up 48 months, range 5-128), whereas five patients died after a median time of 8 months from the diagnosis of KS. However, no death was caused by KS. We conclude that the incidence of KS after HSCT is very low. Although KS can be managed with the reduction of immunosuppression, visceral forms may require chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. The low prevalence of KS indicates that screening for HHV-8 serology and surveillance for HHV-8 viremia are not indicated in HSCT patients.