A prospective study of respiratory ciliary structure and function after stem cell transplantation

We prospectively investigated the morphological and ciliary function abnormalities in 19 consecutive Chinese patients undergoing hemopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and studied their relationship with pulmonary complications. The percentage of structural ciliary abnormalities preceding HSCT was comparable to normal controls, but increased up to 1-year post-HSCT. However, the abnormalities did not correlate with ciliary or pulmonary function. Ciliary beat frequency (CBF) for patients undergoing autologous and allogeneic SCT was lower than that of matched controls, with a further decline at one year. There was, however, no significant change in pulmonary function for the whole cohort. There was considerable variation in CBF and ciliary abnormalities in all cases during 3-month interval assessments. Regular ciliary assessment did not predict the only two patients who eventually suffered from bronchiolitis obliterans (BO). We conclude that structural and functional ciliary abnormalities are common in recipients of HSCT, and predict post-HSCT deterioration. However, there is no evidence to show that CBF monitoring may be of prospective benefit.