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Clinical characteristics and outcomes of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation recipients with coronavirus disease 2019 caused by the Omicron variant: a prospective, observational cohort study

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Abstract

We aimed to describe the clinical characteristics, particularly the occurrence and risk factors of severe/critical illness, in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell (allo-HSCT) recipients infected with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by Omicron variant in an observational prospective study (n = 311). The median time from allo-HSCT to COVID-19 diagnosis was 8.5 months (range 0.8–106.1) months. Four patients (1.3%) were reported to be asymptomatic during Omicron variant infection, and 135 (43.4%) patients showed lower respiratory tract disease. Thirty-four (10.9%) patients were categorized into serious infection (severe illness n = 25; critical illness n = 9) and the median duration from COVID-19 diagnosis to serious infections was 6 days (range, 0–29) days. Thirteen (4.2%) and 6 (1.9%) patients required intensive care unit care and invasive mechanical ventilation, respectively. Receiving more than 1 type of immunosuppressive therapies at COVID-19 diagnosis was associated with severity and persistence of infection. Six patients (1.9%) died after diagnosis of COVID-19 infection. The 4-week probability of overall survival after COVID-19 diagnosis was 98.7%, which was 100% and 88.2% for non-serious and serious infection group (P < 0.001), respectively. Thus, we observed a relatively low serious infection and mortality rate in allo-HSCT recipients infected with COVID-19 caused by Omicron variant.

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Data availability

The dataset supporting the conclusions of this article is available in the clinical data repository of Peking University People’s Hospital. Individual participant data were not shared. For the original data, please contact moxiaodong@pkuph.edu.cn.

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Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate Dr. Wen-Xuan Huo, Ze Guo, Qi Wen, Meng-Zhu Shen, and Ze-Hua Wu for their help in data collection. This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Nos. 2022YFA1103300 and 2022YFC2502606), Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82293630), the Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81930004), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82170208), CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (No. 2019-I2M-5-034, 2022-I2M-C&T-B-121), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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Xiaojun Huang designed the study. Xiaohui Zhang, LanPing, Yu Wang, Chenhua Yan, Huan Chen, Yuanyuan Zhang, Yifei Cheng, Yuqian Sun, Yuhong Chen, Yao Chen, Wei Han, Jingzhi Wang, Fengrong Wang, and Zhengli Xu conducted data collection and manuscript preparation. Xiaodong Mo and Shuang Fan conducted data analysis, statistical analysis, and manuscript editing.

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Correspondence to Xiaojun Huang.

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Fan, S., Mo, X., Zhang, X. et al. Clinical characteristics and outcomes of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation recipients with coronavirus disease 2019 caused by the Omicron variant: a prospective, observational cohort study. Ann Hematol 103, 1333–1344 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00277-024-05653-8

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