Pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in China: Data and trends during 1998-2012.

The success of treating a wide variety of pediatric diseases with HSCT, hematologic malignancies in particular, has resulted in an increased number of long-term survivors. This study is the first large-scale, multicentre report that describes the evolution of pediatric HSCTs in China during the period of 1998–2012. Of all 1052 patients, 266 cases were treated with autologous HSCs and 786 used allogeneic HSCs. The disease indications for HSCTs mainly included leukemias, lymphoma, solid tumors, and non-malignant disorders. The total number of HSCTs, especially unrelated donor transplants, appeared to be increasing year by year. For patients with neuroblastoma, the therapeutic efficacy seemed to be poor, with a five-yr OS and DFS rate of 34.5 ± 14.3% and 20.7 ± 9.6%, respectively. In contrast, the survival of patients with SAA was prominently improved, and their five-yr OS and DFS rates were 82.8 ± 4% and 80.7 ± 4.1%, respectively. Patients who received cord blood transplants had a lower incidence of acute GVHD than that of PB and/or BM transplants from unrelated donors. This report offers us a valuable resource for evaluating the changes in HSCTs in China over the past 14 yr.