Nutritional status and growth after bone marrow transplantation (BMT) during childhood: EBMT Late-Effects Working Party retrospective data

The European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) Late-Effects Working Party collected data on patients who survived more than 5 years af ter BMT, Height at transplant and at the latest followup examination were e valuated in 79/258 subjects who were below the age of 15 at BMT, A signific ant decrease in height-standard deviation score (SDS) was observed in leuke mic children conditioned with total body irradiation (TBT) and in those who received both cranial irradiation and TBI, The majority of these patients, however, received single-dose TBI (28/41), A significant decrease in heigh t-SDS was also seen in children who received thoraco-abdominal irradiation suggesting that the deleterious effect of irradiation on growth after BR IT is not entirely due to injury to cranial neuroendocrine structures, but al so probably due to damage to bone epiphyses, thyroid and gonads. A non-sign ificant decrease in height was observed in children transplanted using chem otherapy alone. Nutritional status, expressed as body-mass index (BMI), was found unchanged in the adult group (n = 158), A significant increase in BM I was observed in the younger patients (n = 88), which parallels the normal increase in BMI observed during childhood. This suggests that on longterm analysis, a good nutritional status is maintained in patients undergoing BM T at any age.