Correlation study of CD34+ stem cell count and engraftment period in allogeneic transplant patients in UKMMC / Hazlina Diyana Bahagian

Hematopoietic progenitor stem cells obtained from the peripheral blood have been increasingly used primarily to treat patient with several malignant hematopoietic disorder. The success of the allogeneic transplantation is significantly dependent on the total CD34+ stem cell count which will determine the rate of the hematopoietic recovery and engraftment. This study was aimed to correlate the different doses of CD34+ stem cell with the period of engraftment. We compared 2 groups of patients based on the total CD34+ stem cell count infused with several parameters for engraftment. Group A consisted of 9 patients who were infused with < 5 x 106 cells/kg CD34+ stem cell and Group B had consisted of 53 patients infused with ≥ 5 x 106 cells/kg CD34+ stem cell. The number of days taken to reach the neutrophil count ≥ 0.5 x 109/L, platelet count of ≥ 50 x 1011/L and successful complete chimerism were documented. In total 62 patients with hematopoietic malignancies were assessed by comparing low versus high doses of CD34+ stem cell. The number of CD34+ stem cell count correlated with the rate of engraftment. Infusion of more than 5 x 106 cells/kg patients body weight of CD34+ stem cells was significantly associated with faster neutrophil engraftment (p= 0.002). However, other parameters such as platelet engraftment (p= 0.149) and complete chimerism period (p= 0.021) were not significantly influenced by the CD34+ stem cell count. Generally this study has shown that infusion of ≥ 5 x 106 cells/kg CD34+ stem cell seems to shorten the time to hematopoietic engraftment.