Sahebi F, Eikema DJ, Koster L, Kroger N, Meijer E, van Doesum JA, Rovira M, Koc Y, Angelucci E, Blaise D, Sammassimo S, McDonald A, Arroyo CH, Sanchez JF, Forcade E, Castagna L, Stölzel F, Sanz J, Tischer J, Ciceri F, Valcarcel D, Proia A, Hayden PJ, Beksac M, Yakoub-Agha I, and Schönland S
Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) remains among the major causes of treatment failure in patients with multiple myeloma (MM) undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT). The use of post-transplantation cyclophosphamide (PT-Cy) is now a well-established and widely used method for GVHD prophylaxis after HLA haploidentical HCT. However, the rationale for using PT-Cy in the setting of matched donor transplantation is less apparent, given the lesser degree of bidirectional alloreactivity. In this retrospective study, we investigated the role of PT-Cy as GVHD prophylaxis in patients with multiple myeloma underoing allo-HCT, among different donor types, to determine cumulative incidence of acute and chronic GVHD and impact on engraftment, progression-free survival (PFS), GVHD-free/relapse- free survival (GRFS), overall survival (OS), and NRM A total of 295 patients with MM underwent allo-HCT using grafts from a matched related donor (MRD; n = 67), matched unrelated donor (MUD; n = 72), mismatched related or unrelated donor (MMRD/MMUD, 1 antigen; n = 27), or haploidentical donor (haplo; n = 129) using PT-Cy between 2012 and 2018. In addition to PT-Cy, agents used in GVHD prophylaxis included calcineurin inhibitors in 239 patients (81%), with mycophenolate mofetil in 184 of those 239 (77%). For grade II-IV acute GVHD, the cumulative incidence at day +100 was 30% (95% confidence interval [CI], 25% to 36%), 9% (95% CI, 5% to 12%) for grade III-IV acute GVHD, and 27% (95% CI, 21% to 32%) for chronic GVHD (limited, 21%; extensive, 6%), with no differences by donor type. The median time to neutrophil engraftment was 19d (95% CI, 18-19), with no significant difference by donor type. The median time to platelet engraftment was delayed in haploidentical donor graft recipients (27 days versus 21 days; P < .001). Two-year OS, PFS, GRFS, and NRM were 51% (95% CI, 45% to 58%), 26% (95% CI, 20% to 32%), 24% (95% CI, 18% to 30%), and 19% (95% CI, 14% to 24%), respectively, with no significant difference between different donor types. In multivariable analyses, compared with the haplo donors, the use of MRDs was associated with significantly better OS (hazard ratio [HR], 0.6; 95% CI, 0.38 to 0.95; P = .029), and the use of MUDs was associated with a significantly higher GRFS (HR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.42 to 0.97; P = .034). There was a trend toward improved PFS with use of MUDs (HR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.46 to 1.04; P = .08). Our data show that PT-Cy in MM patients undergoing allo-HCT resulted in low rates of acute and chronic GVHD and led to favorable survival, especially in the matched related donor setting. © 2021 American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. Published by Elsevier Inc., (Copyright © 2021 The American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)