Researchers from the University Hospital of Regensburg in Germany have developed a scale to capture and measure comorbidities associated with transplantation. Their work, published in Bone Marrow Transplantation, describes and evaluates the Post-transplant Multimorbidity Index (PTMI) in chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) patients. Their results suggest the PTMI improves the identification of comorbidities in long-term transplant survivors.

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (alloHSCT) is a therapy used for certain types of blood cancers. While several comorbidities are associated with increased post-transplant mortality, cGVHD remains an important risk factor for late mortality. Several indices such as the hematopoietic cell transplantation-specific comorbidity index (HCT-CI) exist to predict survival after HCT, but do not predict comorbidities which interfere with quality of life (QoL) and physical functioning (PF) during long-term follow up. Therefore, the researchers sought to create and evaluate the PTMI.

The PTMI was developed in 50 long term alloHSCT survivors and evaluated in 208 post-alloHSCT patients. Compared to the HCT-CI, the PTMI showed superior sensitivity when determining effects caused by cGVHD. Additionally, the PTMI showed a higher correlation to QoL and PF variables compared to the HCT-CI. These findings suggest the PTMI may be useful for determining comorbidities, particularly in cGvHD therapy trials.

Reference:

Wolff, D., Herzberg, P.Y., Herrmann, A. et al. Post-transplant multimorbidity index and quality of life in patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease—results from a joint evaluation of a prospective German multicenter validation trial and a cohort from the National Institutes of Health. Bone Marrow Transplant 56, 243–256 (2021).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41409-020-01017-8

Tags: GVHD, Patients, Transplant, chronic GVHD, post-transplant, quality of life, results, multimorbidity index