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Infections

Incidence and risk factors of post-engraftment invasive fungal disease in adult allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients receiving oral azoles prophylaxis

Abstract

Studies that analyze the epidemiology and risk factors for invasive fungal disease (IFD) after engraftment in alloSCT are few in number. This single-center retrospective study included 404 alloSCT adult recipients surviving >40 days who engrafted and were discharged without prior IFD. All patients who received 20 mg/day of prednisone were assigned to primary oral prophylaxis (itraconazole or low-dose voriconazole). The primary end point was the cumulative incidence (CI) of probable/proven IFD using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer and Mycoses Study Group (EORTC/MSG) criteria. The independent prognostic factors after multivariate analyses were used to construct a post-engraftment IFD risk score. The 1-year CI of IFD was 11%. The non-relapse mortality was 40% in those developing IFD and 16% in those who did not. The intent-to-treat analysis showed that 17% of patients abandoned the assigned prophylaxis. Age >40 years, 1 previous SCT, pre-engraftment neutropenia >15 days, extensive chronic GVHD and CMV reactivation were independent risk factors. The post-engraftment IFD score stratified patients into low risk (0–1 factor, CI 0.7%), intermediate risk (2 factors, CI 9.9%) and high risk (3–5 factors, CI 24.7%) (P<0.0001). The antifungal prophylaxis strategy failed to prevent post-engraftment IFD in 11% of alloSCT. Our risk score could be useful to implement risk-adapted strategies using antifungal prophylaxis after engraftment.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Paula Petruskevicius, Carlos Pastorini, David Pellicer and Shirley Weiss for data collection and management. This study was in part supported by grant 2012/023 from the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria La Fe. This paper was supported by an independent medical grant provided by Pfizer, Inc.

Author contributions

PM, RR-V and MAS conceived the study, analyzed and interpreted the data; PM and RR-V wrote the paper and performed the statistical analyses; BB, DM-C, IC, AL, JS, MJA, FL-C, IN, IL, MS, JP, JM, NC, IJ and GFS reviewed the manuscript and contributed to the final draft.

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Correspondence to P Montesinos.

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Montesinos, P., Rodríguez-Veiga, R., Boluda, B. et al. Incidence and risk factors of post-engraftment invasive fungal disease in adult allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients receiving oral azoles prophylaxis. Bone Marrow Transplant 50, 1465–1472 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/bmt.2015.181

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