Pretransplant bone marrow cellularity and blood count recovery are not associated with relapse or survival risk following allogeneic stem cell transplant for AML in CR

INTRODUCTION Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) can be curative for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Novel therapies may render patients' bone marrow hypocellularity and lead to prolonged post-therapy pancytopenia. Patients' bone marrow cellularity (BMC) at pretransplant assessment and post-treatment pancytopenia (classification CR-incomplete [CRi]) may manifest AML persistence. METHODOLOGY We retrospectively examined the impact of BMC and ELN response (ELNr) on a single-center cohort of 337 patients who underwent allogeneic HCT for AML in CR1. RESULTS Median follow-up was 33 months. Overall survival (OS) for the whole cohort was 55.8% at 2 years, while cumulative incidence of relapse (CIR) was 20.8%, and non-relapse mortality was 27.5%. OS and CIR were not significantly different between BMC groups; and neither was ELNr. ELNr CRi was associated with BMC aplastic and hypocellular marrow states (P