Assessing the impact of ABO incompatibility on major allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant outcomes: a prospective, single-center, cohort study

BACKGROUND: ABO blood group incompatibility between donor and recipient is associated with a number of immunohematological complications, but is not considered a major contraindication to allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. However, available evidence from the literature seems to be conflicting as to the impact of incompatibility on overall survival, event-free survival, transplant-related mortality, graft-versus-host disease, and time to neutrophil and platelet engraftment. METHODS: This single-center, prospective, cohort study included patients with hematological malignancies who underwent a first allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation between 2008 and 2014. Patients receiving umbilical cord blood as the stem cell source were excluded from this analysis. The impact of ABO incompatibility was evaluated in respect to overall survival, event-free survival, transplant-related mortality, acute graft-versus-host disease and engraftment. RESULTS: A total of 130 patients were included of whom 78 (60%) were males. The median age at transplant was 36 (range: 2–65) years, 44 (33%) presented ABO incompatibility, 75 (58%) had acute leukemia, 111 (85%) had a related donor, 100 (77%) received peripheral blood hematopoietic stem cells as graft source and 99 (76%) underwent a myeloablative conditioning regimen. There was no statistically significant association between ABO incompatibility and overall survival, event-free survival, transplant-related mortality, grade II–IV acute graft-versus-host disease, neutrophil or platelet engraftment in multivariate analysis. CONCLUSION: These results show that ABO incompatibility does not seem to influence these parameters in patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.