Body Mass Index As an Indicator of Prognosis in Patients Undergoing Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: A Single Institution Experience

Both obesity and malnutrition are considered risk factors for complications and increased relapse and nonrelapse mortality in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). An inferior outcome after allogeneic HSCT has been reported in obese adult patients in both allogeneic and autologous HSCT: Overweight individuals seem to develop more complications of graft versus host disease and more infections than its normal counterparts. Between March 1996 and December 2010, a total of 138 patients received an allogeneic HSCT in the Centro de Hematología y Medicina Interna of the Clinica Ruiz. Patients were stratified according to pretransplantation body mass index (BMI) values: 17 patients had low BMI, 62 had normal BMI and 59 patients had high BMI. Median overall survival (OS) for these three groups were respectively 9, 12 and 22 months. Patients with a low BMI had a lower OS than those with a normal BMI (58-month OS of 24% versus 32%), whereas patients with an increased BMI had a better outcome (median OS of 22 months and 43% OS at 130 months) than those with a normal BMI. Our findings demonstrate a correlation between pretransplantation BMI and posttransplantation survival and should provide insight into how to better manage nutritional support for patients undergoing HSCT.