No Impact of Total or Myeloid Cd34+Cell Numbers on Neutrophil Engraftment and Transplantation-Related Mortality after Allogeneic Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplantation

Although the influence of transplanted bone marrow (BM) CD34+ cells on neutrophil engraftment (NE) and transplantation outcomes has been discussed controversially, thresholds between 2 and 4 x 10(6)/kg CD34+ cells are commonly accepted. This has substantial consequences for a donor in terms of BM volume to be collected, which frequently covers up to 15 to 20 mL/kg. As the BM CD34+ compartment contains varying fractions of CD34+/CD19+ B lymphoid progenitors, we tested the hypothesis that the infused CD34+/ CD45dim/CD19-/CD10- myeloid stem cells might reliably predict NE in 94 children who received BM from 37 HLA-identical sibling donors (MSD) and 57 matched unrelated donors after myeloablative conditioning. The grafts contained a median of 3.6 x 106/kg total CD34+ cells, which consisted of a median of 73% myeloid CD34+ cells and 27% B lymphoid progenitors. Grafts from donors <15 years old yielded significantly lower myeloid fractions compared with grafts from older donors (P <.001). All patients achieved sustained NE after median 20 (range, 11 to 40) days. By multivariate analysis, neither the number of total CD34+ cells (P = .605) nor of myeloid CD34+ cells (P = .981) correlated with NE, whereas transplantation from MSD (hazard ratio [HR] 3.51; P = .019) and the administration of granulocyte colony stimulating factor (HR 2.24; P = .002) remained independent factors associated with earlier NE. Furthermore, neither total nor myeloid CD34+ cell quantities were associated with incidences of severe infections before NE (P = .271 and P = .132) or transplantation-related mortality (TRM) at day +100 (P = .294 and P = .490). Taking into account that the number of transplanted total CD34+ or myeloid CD34+ cells does not seem to have a relevant impact on time to NE, sepsis rates, or TRM, the need of certain threshold cell numbers should be revisited, at least for pediatric MSD. 2014 American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation.