The impact of pretransplant serum ferritin on haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplant for acquired severe aplastic anemia in children and adolescents

Haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplant (haplo-HSCT) provides an important alternative for children and adolescents with acquired severe aplastic anemia (SAA) lacking matched donors. To test whether pretransplant serum ferritin (SF) represents a candidate predictor for survival and a potential biomarker for graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) in pediatric haplo-HSCT, we retrospectively evaluated 147 eligible patients with SAA who underwent haplo-HSCT. The patients were divided into the low-SF group (< 1000 ng/mL) and the high-SF group (>= 1000 ng/mL). We found that SF >= 1000 ng/mL independently increased the risk of grade II-IV aGvHD (HR = 2.596; 95% CI, 1.304-5.167, P = 0.007) and grade III-IV aGvHD (HR = 3.350; 95% CI, 1.162-9.658, P = 0.025). Similar probabilities of transplant-related mortality at 100 days were observed in the two groups (6.19 +/- 2.45% vs 8.00 +/- 3.84%, P = 0.168). The two-year overall survival (85.29 +/- 3.89% vs 92.00% +/- 3.84%, P = 0.746) and failure-free survival (83.23% +/- 4.08% vs 83.37% +/- 6.27%, P = 0.915) were comparable. GvHD-/failure-free survival were 60.06 +/- 5.10% and 75.56 +/- 6.87%, respectively (P = 0.056). In conclusion, elevated pretransplant SF level is associated with higher incidences of grade II-IV aGvHD and grade III-IV aGvHD. However, it is not associated with worse survival after haplo-HSCT for children and adolescent patients with SAA.

Automated summary

Elevated pretransplant serum ferritin levels are associated with increased incidences of higher-grade graft-versus-host disease after haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplant in children and adolescents with acquired severe aplastic anemia. However, it does not affect survival rates for these patients.