• Elizabeth M Hamilton, Karthik D Nath, Venkat N Vangaveti, Andrew D McCutchan, Jodie L Marsh, Andrew J Birchley, John M Casey, Caroline McNamara, Hock C Lai, Edward S Morris, Georgina Hodges, and Ian M Irving.
• Department of Haematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation, The Townsville Hospital, Townsville, Australia.
• Intern Med J. 2020 Feb 1; 50 (2): 214-221.

BackgroundThe Townsville Hospital is a tertiary hospital in North Queensland with one of the largest regional transplant centres in Australia, performing primarily autologous haemopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCT) for various haematological malignancies.AimsThis single-centre, retrospective, observational study aims to describe the activity and outcomes of autologous HSCT at The Townsville Hospital between 2003 and 2017 to verify safety standards.MethodsPatient-level data were collected, including demographics, frequency and indication for transplant, conditioning, current clinical status and cause of death. Key outcomes included overall survival, non-relapse mortality, incidence of therapy-related neoplasm and causes of death. Progression-free survival in the multiple myeloma (MM) subgroup was also assessed.ResultsThere were 319 autologous HSCT in 286 patients, with a median age of 58 years (range 14-71 years); 62% of patients were male. Indications for transplantation were: MM 53.7%, non-Hodgkin lymphoma 29.4%, Hodgkin lymphoma 5.0% and other 11.9%. Causes of death were: disease progression/relapse (65.2%), second malignancy (17.0%), infection (9.8%) and other (8.0%). Non-relapse mortality was 1.2% (95% confidence interval 0.4-3.0) and 3.2% (1.7-5.7) at 100 days and 1 year, respectively, post-HSCT. Overall survival at 2 years was 81.0% (73.8-86.4) for MM and 69.6% (58.8-78.1) for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The median progression-free survival in the MM cohort was 3.3 years.ConclusionThe Townsville Hospital transplant centre provides an important transplant service in regional Queensland, with outcomes comparable to national data. We reported a relatively high rate of second malignancy as a cause of death.© 2019 Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

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