Dr. Abdul-Hay on the Use of HCT-CI to Guide Transplant Eligibility in ALL

Mohammad Maher Abdul-Hay, MD, an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, director of the Clinical Leukemia Program in NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, and associate director for research in the Bellevue Cancer Center, discusses the use of the Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation-specific Comorbidity Index (HCT-CI) to guide transplant eligibility in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

The HCT-CI is a comorbidity index, which is made up of 17 points, says Abdul-Hay. Points can be assigned to a patient based on pulmonary function test, history, diabetes status, kidney disease, and more. The lower the total score, the less likelihood the patient has of developing transplant-associated complications or mortality, says Abdul-Hay. A patient who has a low HCT-CI score and is deemed eligible for transplant should undergo transplant, adds Abdul-Hay.

In the era of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), prevention treatment posttransplant, such as cyclophosphamide-based regimens, have decreased the incidence of GVHD, leading to an increased success rate with transplant.