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Pre-SCT serum ferritin is a prognostic factor in adult AML, but not ALL

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 46, pages 1268–1269 (2011)Cite this article

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Recent studies have suggested that pre-SCT iron overload is related to decreased survival after allo-SCT for hematologic malignancies.1, 2, 3, 4, 5 We previously reported that the pre-SCT serum ferritin level and the disease status at transplantation predict the outcome in patients with AML or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).6 This time, we investigated whether pre-SCT serum ferritin is a significant predictor of the prognosis in ALL patients.

We studied 143 patients with AML or ALL who received allo-SCT at Kanagawa Cancer Center between January 2000 and December 2009. Patients who received second allo-SCT for engraftment failure or relapse were excluded. To clarify the clinical significance of the pre-SCT serum ferritin level, we compared the ALL patients (n=40) with the AML patients (n=103). The clinical characteristics of the two groups are shown in Table 1, including the age, gender, disease risk at SCT (patients in their first or second CR were defined as standard risk, whereas all others were defined as high risk), conditioning regimen, GVHD prophylaxis, donor and stem cell types, acute GVHD, and chronic GVHD. Pre-SCT serum ferritin measured within 2 weeks before preconditioning was categorized as low (<1000 ng/mL) or high (⩾1000 ng/mL) on the basis of the previous results.6 The above variables were investigated as predictors of the outcome after SCT. Fisher's exact test or the Mann–Whitney U-test was used for categorical comparisons. The log-rank test was used for comparison of Kaplan–Meier curves and the Cox regression model was used for multivariate analyses. Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS software (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Data were analyzed as of 31 March 2010.

Table 1 Patients characteristics
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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hematology, Kanagawa Cancer Center, Yokohama, Japan

    T Tachibana, M Tanaka, H Takasaki, A Numata, A Maruta & H Kanamori

  2. Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama, Japan

    Y Ishigatsubo

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  1. T Tachibana
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  2. M Tanaka
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  3. H Takasaki
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  4. A Numata
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  5. A Maruta
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  6. Y Ishigatsubo
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  7. H Kanamori
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Correspondence to H Kanamori.

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Tachibana, T., Tanaka, M., Takasaki, H. et al. Pre-SCT serum ferritin is a prognostic factor in adult AML, but not ALL. Bone Marrow Transplant 46, 1268–1269 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/bmt.2010.271

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