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Post-Transplant Events

High incidence of fatty liver and insulin resistance in long-term adult survivors of childhood SCT

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 46, pages 416–425 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Overweight/obesity among adult survivors of childhood SCT has been considered to be predictive of eventual development of metabolic abnormalities. Fatty liver is increasingly recognized as a major cause of liver-related morbidity and mortality in the general population. However, the real incidence of fatty liver in adult survivors of SCT has not been fully elucidated. We determined whether adult survivors are at risk for overweight/obesity, metabolic abnormalities and fatty liver and whether these risks are associated with cranial radiotherapy (CRT) before SCT. Among the 51 patients (30 males), only two male patients were overweight/obese at the last evaluation. On the other hand, 9 male (30%) and 15 female (71%) patients were underweight. Fatty liver was diagnosed in 11 male (37%) and 10 female (48%) patients during the follow-up period, although patients who had fatty liver did not tend to be overweight/obese. Significantly more patients who received CRT before SCT developed fatty liver with insulin resistance than those who did not (P<0.05). Even patients who are not overweight/obese may develop fatty liver and metabolic abnormalities. We recommend that healthcare professionals recognize these risks and give life-long attention to detecting, preventing and treating late complications after SCT.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Laurie E. Cohen for advice and critical review of the article. We also thank all the medical staff at Tokai University Hospital for patient care. This work was supported in part by a Research Grant (H20-015) on allergic disease and immunology from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan.

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  1. Y Tomita and H Ishiguro: These authors contributed equally to this work and share first authorship.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Tokai University School of Medicine, Isehara, Kanagawa, Japan

    Y Tomita, H Ishiguro, Y Yasuda, H Hyodo, T Koike, T Shimizu, T Morimoto, K Hattori, M Matsumoto, H Inoue, H Yabe, M Yabe, O Shinohara & S Kato

  2. Department of Cell Transplantation & Regenerative Medicine, Tokai University School of Medicine, Isehara, Japan

    H Yabe & S Kato

  3. Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Tokai University School of Medicine, Isehara, Japan

    S Kojima

  4. Department of Clinical Laboratory, Tokai University School of Medicine, Isehara, Japan

    T Minemura

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Correspondence to H Ishiguro.

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Tomita, Y., Ishiguro, H., Yasuda, Y. et al. High incidence of fatty liver and insulin resistance in long-term adult survivors of childhood SCT. Bone Marrow Transplant 46, 416–425 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/bmt.2010.144

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