Author(s)

Kenji Matsumoto, Satomi Ito, Wataru Yamamoto, Eriko Ogusa, Atsuo Maruta, Yoshiaki Ishigatsubo, Heiwa Kanamori

Department Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama, Japan..
Department of Hematology, Kanagawa Cancer Center, Yokohama, Japan.

We retrospectively assessed long-term pulmonary function in adults surviving for ≥5 years after myeloablative allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and identified risk factors for late-onset noninfectious pulmonary complications. Among 174 patients undergoing transplantation for hematologic malignancies between May 1994 and December 2004, 81 long-term survivors were evaluated. Pulmonary function tests (PFTs) were performed before conditioning, 3 months and 1 year after transplantation, and then annually. Eight patients (10%) had abnormal pulmonary function before transplantation, but this was not associated with late changes in PFTs. Patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) showed a significant decline of lung function after 3 years when compared with patients without chronic GVHD. Abnormal pretransplantation lung function was associated with pulmonary chronic GVHD according to National Institutes of Health criteria (score 0, n = 58; score 1, n = 14; score 2, n = 6; score 3, n = 3). Five patients with late-onset noninfectious pulmonary complications showed a decline of lung function at 1 year after transplantation. Only chronic GVHD was significantly related to late-onset noninfectious pulmonary complications. In conclusion, abnormal lung function before transplantation may be associated with a decline in pulmonary function within 1 year after transplantation, but late-onset noninfectious pulmonary complications could not be predicted from pretransplantation lung function.

Long-Term Survivor; Pulmonary Function Tests; Late-Onset Noninfectious Pulmonary Complications; Myeloablative Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation

K. Matsumoto, S. Ito, W. Yamamoto, E. Ogusa, A. Maruta, Y. Ishigatsubo and H. Kanamori, "Clinical Significance of Pulmonary Function Tests in Long-Term Survivors after Myeloablative Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation," Open Journal of Blood Diseases, Vol. 3 No. 1, 2013, pp. 6-12. doi: 10.4236/ojbd.2013.31002.