Incidence of invasive fungal disease after unmanipulated haploidentical stem cell transplantation was significantly higher than that after HLA-matched sibling transplantation.

The aim of this study was to determine the incidence, clinical features and outcome of invasive fungal disease (IFD) after either unmanipulated haploidentical haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) or human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-matched sibling HSCT. This was a head-to-head comparative study performed at a single centre. Patients were admitted between 2007 and 2010, and IFD was evaluated according to the revised EORTC/MSG criteria, with only proven and probable cases included. Of the 1042 consecutive patients enrolled, 390 received the HLA-matched HSCT and 652 received unmanipulated haploidentical HSCT. A total of 61 (5.8%) patients had IFD, including 15 proven cases and 46 probable cases. The incidence of IFD after unmanipulated haploidentical HSCT was significantly higher than that after HLA-matched transplantation (7.1% vs. 3.3%, respectively; p 0.007). IFD occurred later in patients receiving HLA-matched transplantation compared with patients receiving unmanipulated haploidentical HSCT (141.5 vs. 23 days, respectively; p 0.04). In multivariate analysis, acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) grades III to IV (HR = 2.214, 95% CI, 1.139-4.304; p 0.019), extensive chronic GVHD (HR = 2.413, 95% CI, 1.377-4.228; p 0.002) and haploidentical transplantation (HR = 2.648, 95% CI, 1.111-6.310; p 0.028) were identified as significant risk factors associated with IFD. The response to antifungal therapy and the IFD-attributable mortality were similar between the two types of transplantation. In conclusion, patients who received unmanipulated haploidentical HSCT had a higher risk of IFD than those patients who received HLA-matched HSCT, but the prognosis of IFD was not associated with the HLA type.