Impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on hematopoietic cell transplantation and cellular therapies in Europe 2020: a report from the EBMT activity survey

In 2020, 45,364 HCT in 41,016 patients, 18,796 (41%) allogeneic and 26,568 (59%) autologous in 690 centers were reported. Changes observed were as follows: total number of HCT -6.5%, allogeneic HCT -5.1%, autologous HCT -7.5%, and were more pronounced in non-malignant disorders for allogeneic HCT and in autoimmune disease for autologous HCT. Main indications were myeloid malignancies 10,441 (25%), lymphoid malignancies 26,120 (64%) and non-malignant disorders 2532 (6%). A continued growth in CAR-T cellular therapies to 1874 (+65%) patients in 2020 was observed. In allogeneic HCT, the use of haploidentical donors increased while use of unrelated and sibling donors decreased. Cord blood HCT increased by 11.7% for the first time since 2012. There was a significant increase in the use of non-myeloablative but a drop in myeloablative conditioning and in use of marrow as stem cell source. We interpreted these changes as being due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic starting early in 2020 in Europe and provided additional data reflecting the varying impact of the pandemic across selected countries and larger cities. The transplant community confronted with the pandemic challenge, continued in providing patients access to treatment. This annual report of the EBMT reflects current activities useful for health care planning.

Automated summary

According to the annual report from the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT), there was a decrease in the number of hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HCT) in 2020 compared to the previous year. The decrease was more pronounced in allogeneic HCT for non-malignant disorders and autologous HCT for autoimmune diseases. However, the use of CAR-T cell therapies and non-myeloablative conditioning showed significant growth.