Risk factors predicting the survival of pediatric patients with relapsed/refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma who underwent hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: a retrospective study from the Turkish pediatric bone marrow transplantation registry

Abstract

We examined outcomes of 62 pediatric patients with relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (rr-NHL) who underwent hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). The overall survival (OS) and event-free survival (EFS) rates were 65% and 48%, respectively. Survival rates for patients with chemosensitive disease at the time of HSCT were significantly higher than those of patients with chemoresistant disease (69% vs. 37%, p = .019 for OS; 54% vs. 12%, p < .001 for EFS; respectively). A chemoresistant disease at transplantation was the only factor that predicted a limited OS (hazard ratio = 10.00) and EFS (hazard ratio = 16.39) rates. Intensive chemotherapy followed by HSCT could be an effective strategy for treating children with rr-NHL and may offer improved survival for a significant group of pediatric patients, particularly those with chemosensitive disease at transplantation.

Keywords:

• Relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma
• children and adolescents
• hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of American Journal Experts for English editing. We also acknowledge Özgür Tosun PhD from Near East University, Nicosia, Cyprus for assistance with statistical analyzes.

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article online at https://doi.org.10.1080/10428194.2017.1330472.