Comorbidities, not age, are predictive of survival after autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation for relapsed/refractory Hodgkin’s lymphoma in patients older than 50 years

Autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (AHCT) is the standard of care for young patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL). However, there is limited experience of its efficacy and feasibility in older patients. The characteristics and outcomes of 121 patients aged ≥50 years (42 of them are ≥60 years old) with R/R HL who underwent AHCT were reviewed. After a median follow-up of 3.1 years, overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) at 5 years were 64 and 55 %, respectively, with no differences between 50–59-year-old and ≥60-year-old patients. Hematological and extra-hematological toxicities after AHCT were comparable between the two groups of age. In univariate analysis, poorer OS and PFS were associated with disease status other than complete remission, hematopoietic cell transplantation comorbidity index (HCT-CI) scores >1, and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) scores >1. HCT-CI scores >1 were also associated with a higher risk of grade 3–4 extrahematologic toxicity. In multivariate analysis, HCT-CI and CCI remained significantly associated with OS and PFS after adjustment for disease status. Our data show that AHCT can be performed in selected patients with R/R HL ≥50 years with acceptable outcome and toxicity. Comorbidities appear to impact AHCT outcome more than age.