Can donor age and kinship affect the outcome of stem cell transplants for acute leukemia patients?

This study aimed to investigate if donor age and kinship affected the outcome of haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplantation for acute leukemia patients.

This study concluded that both factors can affect the outcome for these patients.  

Haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplantation (halpo-HCT) is used as a treatment for acute leukemia (AL) when matched sibling or matched unrelated donors are not available. Haplo-HCT involves transferring stem cells from a donor that is a 50% match to an AL patient to produce new healthy cells. However, it was unknown if donor age and kinship would have an impact on the outcome for AL patients being treated in this way. 

This study involved data from 1270 patients who had acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and underwent haplo-HCT. 700 of these patients were transplanted at age 40 and over. 570 were transplanted at age under 40. Patients were followed for an average of 27 months.

Patients in the over 40 group had higher non-relapse mortality (NRM) when they received transplant from older donors. NRM is death which is not caused by cancer returning.  They also had inferior leukemia free survival (LFS, time from treatment until return of the cancer) and overall survival (OS, time from tratmtn until death form any cause). Patients in the over 40 group had higher NRM when they received a transplant from their child when the child was over the age of 35. They also had inferior LFS and OS.

Donor age and kinship did not impact the outcome of halpo-HCT for patients aged under 40. 

This study concluded that donor age and kinship can affect the outcome of haplo-HCT for patients aged over 40 with AL. 

Consult your physician about haplo-HCT as a treatment option.