Age alone should not be a factor when considering patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma for allogeneic haematopoietic cell transplantation, delegates to a blood and marrow transplantation meeting will hear this weekend.
Researchers will report results from a retrospective study of 1,629 patients with NHL. This showed that four-year survival after HCT among patients aged 65 years and older is comparable to those aged 55 to 64 years.
An oral session at the BMT Tandem Meetings in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, this weekend will hear from by researchers at the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) who conducted the multi-centre study.
They compared 446 patients age 65 years and older with 1,183 patients aged 55-64 years who underwent allogeneic HCT for NHL from 2008 to 2015.
They discovered there were no significant differences in the four-year overall survival (46% compared with 51%) and disease relapse/progression (42% compared with 41%) between the two different age groups.
Dr Nirav Shah, lead author and assistant professor of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin's Division of Hematology and Oncology, said: “Age alone should not be a determining factor in the decision to refer older patients for transplant consultation to determine patient eligibility.
“Advances in conditioning regimens and progress in post-transplant care have allowed more patients more than 65 years old or those with co-morbidities to undergo allogeneic HCT. In 2017 alone, nearly 19% of transplant patients were more than 65 years old.”
Source: US National Marrow Donor Program