title: Increase in height during the first year after bone marrow transplantation reflecting nutritional status of children.
abstract: We studied the influence of pre-transplant nutritional status on height velocity during the first post-transplant year. Thirty-seven children aged 1.4-12.4 years, 19 males and 18 females, underwent bone marrow transplantation (24 allogeneic, 13 autologous) with fractionated total body irradiation included in the preparative regimen of 25. The underlying diagnoses were leukemia (n = 16), malignant solid tumor (n = 11), and non-malignant hematologic or metabolic disease (n = 10). The serum concentrations of albumin, pre-albumin and transferrin were measured. Anthropometric measurements included weight, mid-arm circumference (MAC) and triceps skinfold thickness, expressed as percentages of the age- and sex-specific standards. The skeletal muscle protein reserve was estimated as muscle index (MI) by ultrasonographic imaging of the femoral quadriceps muscle. Height velocity was expressed as a standard deviation score (SDS) of the age- and sex-specific mean. The mean relative height velocity SDS was -1.6 (95% CI -2.2- -1.0). Height velocity correlated significantly with pre-transplant MI (r = 0.54, P = 0.004), concentration of serum transferrin (r = 0.33, P = 0.05) and MAC (r =0.45, P = 0.04). Our data suggest that pre-transplant nutritional status has an impact on growth in height during the post-transplant period.
authors.affiliation: Hospital for Children and Adolescents, University of Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Taskinen
authors.forename: U M
authors.initials: UM
authors.lastname: Saarinen-Pihkala
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001827:Body Height; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006402:Hematologic Diseases / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy; D013997:Time Factors; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous