Chronic disease burden and frailty in survivors of childhood HSCT: a report from the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study.

Outcomes of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) have markedly improved over the past 2 decades, underscoring a need to better understand the long-term health effects of this intensive treatment modality. We describe the burden of chronic medical conditions and frail health among St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study participants treated for childhood hematologic malignancies with HSCT (n = 112) or with conventional therapy (n = 1106). Chronic conditions and frail health were ascertained clinically and classified according to a modified version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (version 4.03) and the Fried Frailty Criteria. Seventy-nine transplants were allogeneic (41 from a sibling donor, 34 unrelated, and 4 others from related donor). Twenty-five allogeneic donor recipients had a history of chronic graft-versus-host disease. Compared to those treated with conventional therapy, a higher percentage of HSCT survivors had severe, disabling, or life threatening (grade 3-4) chronic conditions (81.3% vs 69.2%, = .007). By age 25 years, HSCT survivors experienced 148 grade 3-4 events/100 compared to 60 among conventional therapy survivors ( < .001). Percentages of survivors with second neoplasms (17.0% vs 7.9%, = .003), grade 3-4 cardiovascular (19.6% vs 10.2%, = .004) and pulmonary (16.1% vs 4.6%, < .001) conditions, and frail health (7.1% vs 1.6%, < .001) were higher after HSCT than conventional therapy. These results underscore the need for clinical follow-up and provide data to guide the development of prevention and/or intervention strategies for this vulnerable population.