Impact of obesity on allogeneic stem cell transplant patients: a matched case-controlled study

To determine the impact of obesity on survival after high-dose therapy followed by allogeneic stem cell transplant in adults and children with various malignancies as well as metabolic disorders.

A matched case-controlled evaluation of 322 allogeneic patients from a single institution with a median follow-up of 296 and 120 days among nonobese and obese patients, respectively, was conducted between April 1983 and June 1995 at the University of Kentucky. The overall survival distributions among subsets defined as either obese or nonobese were measured.

The overall survival among the nonobese and obese was 35% and 20%, respectively (P = 0.0045). When patients were separated by age, the adult patients maintained this difference, while the children did not. When patients were stratified according to donor status, both the histocompatible and the nonhistocompatible adults had an inferior outcome among obese patients. The difference, however, was significant only among the histocompatible group (P = 0.0007). Causes of deaths were insignificantly distributed among both relapse as well as nonrelapse mechanisms.

Adult obese patients undergoing high-dose chemotherapy with stem cell rescue have a more adverse outcome. Both relapse and nonrelapse causes are responsible for the different outcome between obese and nonobese groups.