Results of the Latin American Bone Marrow Transplantation Society (LABMT) activity survey 2019-2022: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in related haploidentical donors

A total of 6767 first hematopoietic cell transplants (HCT), 4121 autologous (61%) and 2646 allogeneic (39%), were reported by 166 teams from 12 Latin American countries that answered the 2022 LABMT/WBMT activity survey. The transplant rate (TR) for Latin America in 2022 was 103 HCT/10 million inhabitants with a wide variation between the different countries. The main indication for allogeneic (allo)-HCT was acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (41%) for the pediatric population and acute myeloid leukemia (32%) for adults. The main indication for autologous (auto)-HCT was neuroblastoma (33%) in children and plasma cell disorders (57%) in adults. In alloHCT, the most used hematopoietic cell source was the bone marrow (54%) in pediatric while peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) (87%) was in adults. PBSC was the source of choice for autoHCT in both ages. The main trends observed in the period 2019-2022 was a decrease in the number of procedures in 2020 in association with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, resuming growth in the following years. AlloHCT had a greater growth compared to autoHCT, and it was mainly driven by the utilization of haploidentical related donors, which became the main source from 2020 onwards.