Influence of Pretransplantation Serum Ferritin on Children Beta-Thalassemia Major Undergoing Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Objectives: To evaluate the influence of pretransplantation serum ferritin on children β-thalassemia major (β-TM) undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of 266 HLA-matched children with β-TM from January 2009 and November 2014 was performed. Transplantation conditioning regimen of these children was the NF-08-TM protocol. Median follow-up time was 28 months (3~62months). We observed the relationship between pretransplantation serum ferritin level and transplantation complications which included infection, graft versus host disease(GVHD),veno-occlusive disease(VOD) and death.

Results: Transplantation-related death occurred in 18 of 266 patients (6.8%). Five-year overall survival (OS) was found to be 92.8%. Among various complications, only infection was significantly associated with the high serum ferritin level (t=-2.673, P=0.008), especially serum ferritin above 3449.5μg/L(P=0.000). Meanwhile infection was the most common complication and severe infection would be main cause of deaths.

Conclusions: NF-08-TM conditioning regimen was the optimization for HLA-matched β-TM patients. High pretransplantation serum ferritin level would bring high infection occurrence.