Pre-transplant Dementia is Associated with Poor Survival After Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: A Nationwide Cohort Study with Propensity Score Matched Control

OBJECTIVE: No previous study examined impact of dementia in the outcome of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). We aimed to investigate overall survival (OS) of patients with dementia after receiving HSCT. METHODS: Among 8,230 patients who underwent HSCT between 2002 and 2018, 5,533 patients younger than 50 years were first excluded. Remaining patients were divided into those who were and were not diagnosed with dementia before HSCT (dementia group n = 31; no dementia n = 2,666). Thereafter, among 2,666 participants without dementia, 93 patients were selected via propensity-matched score as non-dementia group. Patients were followed from the day they received HSCT to the occurrence of death or the last follow-up day (December 31, 2018), whichever came first. RESULTS: With median follow-up of 621 days for dementia group and 654 days for non-dementia group, 2 year-OS of dementia group was lower than that of non-dementia group (53.3% [95% confidence interval, 95% CI, 59.0−80.2%] vs. 68.8% [95% CI, 38.0−68.2%], p = 0.076). In multivariate analysis, dementia had significant impacts on OS (hazard risk = 2.539, 95% CI, 1.166−4.771, p = 0.017). CONCLUSION: Our results indicated that patients diagnosed with dementia before HSCT have 2.539 times higher risk of mortality after transplantation than those not having dementia. With number of elderly needing HSCT is increasing, further work to establish treatment guidelines for the management of HSCT in people with dementia is needed.