title: Impact of donor and recipient sex and parity on outcomes of HLA-identical sibling allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
abstract: Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (SCT) may cure patients with hematologic malignancies, but it carries significant risks. Careful donor selection is an important component of the clinical transplantation decision-making process and includes evaluation of HLA typing and other criteria, the most controversial of which is parity. We examined the effect of donor sex and parity on outcomes of HLA-identical sibling SCT. Because the effect of recipient sex/parity has never been explicitly evaluated, we also analyzed the effect of recipient sex/parity on outcomes of transplantation. We found that (1) parous female donors result in an increased risk of chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in all recipients, (2) the magnitude of this increased risk is similar in male and female recipients, and (3) nulliparous female donors increase the risk of chronic GVHD in male recipients to a degree comparable to that from parous donors. A decrease in the risk of relapse was not observed, and there was no effect on overall survival, acute GVHD, or transplant-related mortality. Recipient parity had no independent effect on any endpoint. Until the effects of pregnancy on the maternal immune system are better understood, it is appropriate whenever possible to avoid parous female donors and to choose male donors for male recipients in HLA-identical related donor SCT.
authors.affiliation: Stem Cell Transplant Program, Abramson Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. awakoff@mail.upenn.edu
authors.forename: Alison W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Loren
authors.forename: Greta R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Bunin
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Boudreau
authors.forename: Richard E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Champlin
authors.forename: Avital
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cnaan
authors.forename: Mary M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Horowitz
authors.forename: Fausto R
authors.initials: FR
authors.lastname: Loberiza
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Porter
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002908:Chronic Disease; D033001:Directed Tissue Donation; D005260:Female; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease / Q000209:etiology*; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010298:Parity; D011247:Pregnancy; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012737:Sex Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis; D016896:Treatment Outcome