High Ferritin Level Is High Risk Factor of II-IV Acute Gvhd or Severe Cytopenia Post-Transplant in Thalassemia HSCT

Purpose: To find out causes of II-IV acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) or severe cytopenia after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT).

Methods: Sixty-four children with thalassemia major underwent HSCT from fifty-seven 7/8 (at allele of A, B, C, or DRB1) matched donors and seven 7/8 match associated with a DQB1 or DPB1 allele mismatched donors from January 2009 to September 2013. Thirty-three patients suffered from II-IV acute GVHD or severe cytopenia beyond day 28 post-transplant (SCB-28PT, WBC < 2G/L for 4 sequence weeks after HSCT, Group 1). The remains (n=31) associated with well status (Group 2). Current study focus on effect of ferritin, recipient age and donor age on the Group 1.

Results: Ferritin was significant higher in Group1 than Group 2 (4178.3 vs.3033.8 ng/ml, p=0.042). Ferritin was also proved as the dangerous cause by multi-factor binary regression analysis (p=0.017). There were insignificant in comparison of Group 1 and Group 2 in donor’s age (30.2 vs.30.4, p=0.939) and receptor’s age (6.3 vs. 6.4,p=0.889), respectively.

Conclusions: The current study showed high ferritin level is a high risk factor of II-IV acute GVHD or SCB-28PT.