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Frailty in Young-Adult HCT Survivors

JAMA Oncol; 2016 Oct; Arora, Sun, Ness, et al

The frequency of frailty in young-adult HCT survivors was similar to that seen in the elderly general population in a cohort study involving nearly 1,300 individuals.

Participants included people who underwent transplant between 1974 and 1998 and survived at least 2 years (n=998), and frequency-matched siblings (n=297). Each completed a frailty survey. Investigators followed HCT survivors for subsequent mortality. Among the results:

  • Frailty prevalence rates in young adult HCT patients were >8%.
  • HCT survivors were more than 8 times more likely to be frail than their siblings.
  • Allogeneic HCT recipients with chronic GvHD had a 15-fold higher risk of frailty compared with autologous HCT.
  • The odds were nearly 3 times higher for those with resolved chronic GvHD.
  • Incidence of subsequent all-cause mortality was 39% at 10 years in frail HCT recipients; it was 15% in those without frailty.
  • Frailty was linked with a nearly 3-fold increased risk of subsequent mortality after adjusting for relevant prognosticators.

Citation:

Arora M, Sun C, Ness K, et al. Physiologic frailty in nonelderly hematopoietic cell transplantation patients: Results from the Bone Marrow Transplant Survivor Study. JAMA Oncol. 2016;2(10):1277-1286. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2016.0855.