A study of unrelated donor hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) recipients in a phase 3 Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMT CTN) trial has shown that bone marrow graft recipients had higher rates of bacterial and pre-engraftment infections than did peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) recipients. The BMT CTN trial 0201 showed no significant differences in 2-year survival between the graft sources, but among 499 recipients in the study whose full infection history was known, the cumulative incidence of bloodstream bacterial infections during the first 100 days was 44.8% for marrow vs. 35.0% for PBSC (p=0.027). The cumulative incidence of infection before engraftment was 47.9% for marrow vs. 32.8% for PBSC (p=0.002), which the researchers note may in part have been due to quicker neutrophil engraftment using PBSC.
Young J-A H, et al. Biol Blood Marrow Transplant