Clinical risk score for predicting invasive fungal disease after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: Analysis of the China Assessment of Antifungal Therapy in Hematological Diseases (CAESAR) study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Invasive fungal disease (IFD) is associated with a high mortality for patients with hematological malignancies undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). This study aimed not only to develop a proven/probable IFD risk-scoring model but to identify high-risk populations that would benefit from anti-fungal prophylaxis.

METHODS

Data from the China Assessment of Antifungal Therapy in Hematological Diseases (CAESAR) study were retrieved, and all patients (n = 1053) undergoing allo-HSCT were randomly divided into the training set (n = 685) for model development and the validation set (n = 368) for model verification. A weighted risk score for proven or probable IFD was established through multivariate logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS

The study population had a mean age of 28.95 years and the majority underwent myeloablative transplantation in complete remission 1 (53.4%). Five risk factors of IFD were identified, namely neutropenia lasting longer than 14 days, corticosteroid use, diabetes, haploidentical donor, and unrelated donor. Based on the risk score for IFD, the patients were categorized into three groups: low risk (score 0-4, 1.5%-4.0%), intermediate risk (score 5-8, 9.8%), and high risk (score>8, 24.7%-14.0%). Anti-fungal prophylaxis may provide benefits for patients with intermediate (8.5% vs. 18.5%, P = .0085) or high risk (19.4% vs. 30.8%, P = .4651) but not low risk (2.1% vs. 3.8%, P = .6136) of IFD.

CONCLUSION

A practical weighted risk score for IFD in patients receiving allo-HSCT was established, which can aid decision-making regarding the administration of anti-fungal prophylaxis.