Impact of ABO incompatibility on patients’ outcome after haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for acute myeloid leukemia - a report from the Acute Leukemia Working Party of the EBMT

A significant proportion of hematopoietic stem cell transplants are performed with ABO-mismatched donors. The impact of ABO mismatch on outcome following transplantation remains controversial and there are no published data regarding the impact of ABO mismatch in acute myeloid leukemia patients receiving haploidentical transplants. Using the European Blood and Marrow Transplant Acute Leukemia Working Group registry we identified 837 patients who underwent haploidentical transplantation. Comparative analysis was performed between patients who received ABO-matched versus ABO-mismatched haploidentical transplants for common clinical outcome variables. Our cohort consisted of 522 ABO-matched patients and 315 ABO-mismatched patients including 150 with minor, 127 with major, and 38 with bi-directional ABO mismatching. There were no significant differences between ABO matched and mismatched patients in terms of baseline disease and clinical characteristics. Major ABO mismatching was associated with inferior day 100 engraftment rate whereas multivariate analysis showed that bi-directional mismatching was associated with increased risk of grade II–IV acute graft-versus-host disease [hazard ratio (HR) 2.387; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.22–4.66; P=0.01). Non-relapse mortality, relapse incidence, leukemia-free survival, overall survival, and chronic graft-versus-host disease rates were comparable between ABO-matched and -mismatched patients. Focused analysis on stem cell source showed that patients with minor mismatching transplanted with bone marrow grafts experienced increased grade II–IV acute graft-versus-host disease rates (HR 2.03; 95% CI: 1.00–4.10; P=0.04). Patients with major ABO mismatching and bone marrow grafts had decreased survival (HR=1.82; CI 95%: 1.048 – 3.18; P=0.033). In conclusion, ABO incompatibility has a marginal but significant clinical effect in acute myeloid leukemia patients undergoing haploidentical transplantation.