A Retrospective Study on the Relationship Between Donor Leukocyte Telomere Length and Prognosis of Acute Leukemia Patients Treated With Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine

This post hoc analysis included patients with acute leukemia who underwent allo-HSCT at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine and Ruijin Hospital Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine. Patients and their donors were assessed for eligibility to join this study. The inclusion criteria were: (1) age ≥ 5 years; (2) diagnosis of acute leukemia including acute myeloid leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia, and mixed phenotype acute leukemia; (3) patients attained complete remission (CR) and achieved full engraftment with 100% donor chimerism following allo-HSCT; (4) telomere testing was conducted on peripheral leukocytes of donors before granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) mobilization, and the results were obtained. Written informed consent was obtained from all included patients and their donors, and the study was conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical approval was approved by the ethics review committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Age ≥ 5 years
• First allo-HSCT from matched related, unrelated, or haploidentical donors
• Achievement of complete remission after allo-HSCT
• Donor blood sample collection before granulocyte colony-stimulating factor mobilization

Exclusion Criteria

• Non-acute leukemia diagnoses, including acute myeloid leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia, and mixed phenotype acute leukemia
• Failure to achieve engraftment with full donor chimerism after allo-HSCT
• Inability to extract DNA for telomere length analysis.