Patient Characteristics:
Patient characteristics are shown in Table 3. In terms of the Revised Disease index 5 (11%) had a score of 0 (low risk) 25 (57%) had a score of 1 (intermediate risk) and 14 (32%) had a score of 2 (high risk).
Survival and Relapse Outcomes:
There were 15 total deaths recorded with a median followup of 70.2 months. Mean estimated overall survival (OS) was 59.9 months (95% CI 47.2–72.5) with a total of 3 deaths prior to 1 year. Median OS was not reached. At 2 years, 13 patients had died (29.5%) with an estimated 2 year OS of 67.4%. Of these 15 deaths, 5 died of relapse, 5 of infection (none of which were GVHD related), 1 of a gastrointestinal bleed, 1 of lung cancer, 1 of venoocclusive disease along with graft failure, and 1 of respiratory failure due to an unknown cause. Of note one patient developed CML from donor cells. Kaplan-Meier curve for OS is shown in Fig. 1. A total of 9 (20.4%) patients relapsed with a median time to relapse of 277 days (89-2300). Of them, 6 relapsed within a year after transplantation.
Engraftment, Product, and HLA Information:
Median time to ANC engraftment was 18 (range 12–28) days while median time to platelet engraftment was 24 (range 16–79) days. Out of the 44 patients, 1 had primary graft rejection. Mean CD4 + cells/µL and CD8 + cells/ µL at day 28 and 90 are listed in Table 4. Median T cell dose was 2.90 x 108 (range 1.30–4.40 x 108) cells/kg. Twenty six patients received a T cell dose of < 3.0 x 108 cells/kg (lower T cell dose, LTCD), with an estimated mean OS of 61.5 months (95% CI 44.7–78.3) while 18 patients who received a T cell dose of ≥ 3.0 x 108/kg (higher T Cell dose, HTCD) had an estimated mean OS of 48.9 months (95% CI 33.9–63.8). This difference was not statistically significant (log rank, p = 0.880). Median CD34 + dose was 8.10 x 106 cells/kg (3.00–10.00). 11 patients received a CD34 + dose of < 6.0 x 106 cells/kg (lower CD34 + dose, LCD),with a mean estimated OS of 59.7 months (95%CI 35.7–83.7) while 33 patients received a CD34 + dose of ≥ 6.0 x 106 cells/kg (higher CD34 + dose, HCD), with a mean estimated OS of 60.1 months (95% CI 45.6–74.7). This difference was not statisticaly significant (log rank, p = 0.893). If patients were HLA matched, their mean estimated OS was 56.4 months (95% CI 40.5–72.3) while if they were unmatched their mean estimated OS was 65.9 months (95% CI 45.9–85.9). This difference was not statistically significant (log rank, p = 0.409). There was one incidence of graft failure in a patient who was transplanted for primary myelofibrosis who eventually developed venooclusive disease before dying.
Graft-versus-Host Disease:
36.3% (16) of patients developed acute GVHD, 13.6% (6) of whom had grade I, 13.6% (6) had grade II and 9.1% (4) had grade III. There were no incidences of grade IV acute GVHD. Of the 16 patients who had acute GVHD, 10 had skin only, 2 had gastrointestinal only, 1 had liver only and 3 had skin and gastrointestinal GVHD. 18.1% (8) patients developed chronic GVHD, of which 2 had lung/skin, 2 had oral/ocular, 1 had oral/lung, 1 had oral/liver, 1 had skin/lung and 1 had skin/ocular. Acute and chronic GVHD cumulative incidence curves are shown in Fig. 2. GVHD free survival probability is shown in Fig. 3. Acute GVHD cumulative incidence was not statistically different if patients were HLA matched or mismatched (Fig. 4, Gray’s test, p = 0.64).
OS as it related to development of acute GVHD or chronic GVHD was not found to be significantly different (log rank, p = 0.421 and p = 0.124 respectively). The number of the following cell types in the graft were determined by flow cytometry analysis using the following cell surface markers: CD3+/CD8+, CD3+/CD4+, CD19+, CD56+, αβ T cells, and γδ T cells to determine the impact on acute and chronic GVHD incidence. The number of only one cell type was found to have an impact on GVHD incidence. Using the median value (9.8 x 106/per ul) as a cut-off, a higher γδ T cell dose was correlated with acute GVHD (p = 0.0038, Fig. 5). It was seen that out of the 8 patients who developed chronic GVHD, 6 of them received a γδ T cell dose above the median however this difference was not found to be significant but this is limited by the small sample size and low incidence of chronic GVHD. Relapse was not significantly different between patients who received a γδ cell dose above the median versus those who received a γδ cell dose below the median (p = 0.7973, Fig. 6).
CMV Status:
Of the 44 patients, 26 were seropositive for CMV pre-transplant, of which 14 had CMV reactivation within the first 100 days post HSCT with a mean of 90.4 days after HSCT to CMV reactivation. One patient had developed CMV DNAemia more than 100 days after HSCT. For the 14 patients who had CMV reactivation within 100 days of HSCT, their mean estimated OS was 33.8 months (95% CI 26.0-41.6) while in those who did not have CMV re-activate their mean estimated OS was 42.7 months (95% CI 30.9–54.5). Four of the patients who reactived within 100 days after HSCT and after 2017, all did so while taking letermovir.