Pulmonary function is a strong predictor of 2‐year overall survival and non‐relapse mortality after allogenic hematopoietic cell transplantation

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the study was to assess the validity of the hematopoietic cell transplantation‐specific comorbidity index (HCT‐CI) and of pulmonary comorbidity prior to HCT in terms of predicting non‐relapse mortality (NRM) and overall survival (OS). METHODS: In this retrospective single‐center study of 663 consecutive adult recipients of HCT, we stratified patients into groups by pulmonary comorbidity: low‐risk, intermediate‐risk, and high‐risk. The predictive value of this pulmonary comorbidity score (PCS) was compared to HCT‐CI. RESULTS: In univariate analysis, the HCT‐CI and the PCS were associated with OS after transplantation when comparing patients in high‐risk groups with patients in low‐risk groups. Using the PCS, the hazard ratios (HRs) of the 2‐year OS in the entire population and in the myeloablative conditioning (MAC) group were 1.98 (p < .001) and 3.27 (p < .001), respectively, whereas the HRs using the HCT‐CI were 1.83 (p < .001) and 2.57 (p = .002). The 2‐year NRM incidence in the three risk‐groups in the entire population was significant using both indexes. In the MAC group, the 2‐year NRM was significant using the PCS (p = .003), but not using the HCT‐CI (p = .23). CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggest that pulmonary function alone is a strong predictor of 2‐year OS and NRM after HCT.