Effect of body mass index on overall survival of patients with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Abstract

The present work was performed to investigate the association between body mass index (BMI) before transplantation and the overall survival (OS) of patients with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). Data from 310 adults who were diagnosed with acute leukemia and underwent allo-HSCT between March 2001 and December 2011 were analyzed. According to the suggested BMI categories for Asian population, patients with BMIs of ⩾23 and ⩾25 kg/m2 were identified as overweight and obese, respectively. Cox proportional hazards models was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The median follow-up time among the patients was 19.7 months (interquartile range=8.1-37.7). A total of 93 (34.8%) people died within the follow-up period. After adjusting for the potential confounders, normal-weight, overweight and obese patients showed significantly lower HRs than those of underweight patients, with a significant trend of OS improvement upon increasing BMI (P=0.019). Overweight and obese patients survived longer, with a significantly decreased HR by ~40% (HR=0.60; 95% CI: 0.38-0.95) compared with underweight and normal-weight patients. An increased OS was seen in allo-HSCT patients with BMI⩾23 kg/m2 compared to those with lower BMI. Further work are still needed to investigate of the effects of BMI or body composition on the survival of allo-HSCT patients.