Higher Age (≥60 Years) Increases the Risk for Adverse Events during Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (autoHSCT) is a standard of care for patients with hemato-oncologic diseases. This procedure is highly regulated, and a quality assurance system needs to be in place. Deviations from defined processes and outcomes are reported as adverse events (AEs: any untoward medical occurrence temporally associated with an intervention that may or may not have a causal relationship), including adverse reactions (ARs: a response to a medicinal product which is noxious and unintended). Only a few reports on AEs cover the procedure of autoHSCT from collection until infusion. Our aim was to investigate the occurrence and severity of AEs in a large data set of patients who were treated by autoHSCT. In this retrospective, observational, single-center study on 449 adult patients during the years 2016–2019, AEs occurred in 19.6% of the patients. However, only 6.0% of patients had ARs, which is a low rate compared to the percentages (13.5–56.9%) found in other studies; 25.8% of the AEs were serious and 57.5% were potentially serious. Larger leukapheresis volumes, lower numbers of collected CD34+ cells and larger transplant volumes significantly correlated with the occurrence and number of AEs. Importantly, we found more AEs in patients >60 years (see graphical abstract). By preventing potentially serious AEs of quality and procedural issues, AEs could be reduced by 36.7%. Our results provide a broad view on AEs and point out steps and parameters for the potential optimization of the autoHSCT procedure, especially in elderly patients.