Effect of body mass index on overall survival of patients with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The present work was performed to investigate the association between body mass index (BMI) before transplantation and the overall survival (OS) of patients with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). SUBJECTS/METHODS: Data from 310 adults who were diagnosed with acute leukemia and underwent allo-HSCT between March 2001 and December 2011 were analyzed. According to the suggested BMI categories for Asian population, patients with BMIs of >= 23 and >= 25 kg/m(2) were identified as overweight and obese, respectively. Cox proportional hazards models was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: The median follow-up time among the patients was 19.7 months (interquartile range = 8.1-37.7). A total of 93 (34.8%) people died within the follow-up period. After adjusting for the potential confounders, normal-weight, overweight and obese patients showed significantly lower HRs than those of underweight patients, with a significant trend of OS improvement upon increasing BMI (P = 0.019). Overweight and obese patients survived longer, with a significantly decreased HR by similar to 40% (HR = 0.60; 95% CI: 0.38-0.95) compared with underweight and normal-weight patients. CONCLUSIONS: An increased OS was seen in allo-HSCT patients with BMI >= 23 kg/m(2) compared to those with lower BMI. Further work are still needed to investigate of the effects of BMI or body composition on the survival of allo-HSCT patients.