ABSTRACT
Haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) using glucocorticoids for acute graft-versus-host disease prophylaxis (GC-haplo) may become a curative treatment option for nonremission acute myeloid leukemia (AML). This retrospective study aimed to identify pre-HCT predictors of survival in a cohort of 97 nonremission AML treated with GC-haplo in Hyogo Medical University Hospital between 2010 and 2020. Relapse and primary induction failure included in 70 (72%) and 27 (28%) patients, respectively. Sixty-one patients (63%) had undergone previous HCT. Multivariate analysis revealed that ≤ 6 months' duration between first complete remission (CR1) and first relapse (Rel1) (CR1-Rel1 interval) (hazard ratio 2.11, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.15-3.89, P = 0.016) and serum albumin before starting the conditioning treatment of ≤ 3.5 g/dL (hazard ratio 1.80, 95%CI 1.09-2.96, P = 0.022) as risk factors for overall survival. Among three groups categorized according to serum albumin and CR1-Rel1 interval, the best 3-year overall survival was observed in patients with albumin > 3.5 g/dL and CR1-Rel1 interval > 6 months or primary induction failure (50.2%, 95%CI 28.9%-68.3%, P < 0.001), revealing that survival could be predicted using albumin and past CR duration in patients with very high-risk AML not in remission before GC-haplo.