Severe lung injury and lung biopsy in children post‐hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: The differences between allogeneic and autologous transplantation

To review outcome of children post‐allogeneic (allo) and autologous (auto) SCT with severe lung injury who had lung biopsy and to determine whether the diagnoses provided by lung biopsy had an impact on outcome. Retrospective study was carried out from January 2000 to June 2010. Nine hundred and eighteen children (0–18 yr) received SCT (allo 476, auto 442), and 59 biopsies were performed in 48 patients. Most common result of lung biopsy was non‐infectious inflammation and recurrent disease in allo‐ and autorecipients, respectively. In a multivariate analysis, survival of allorecipients who had management change was inferior (p = 0.002; HR: 3.12). These patients were extremely sick, and management change was the last attempt to stabilize their respiratory status. There was a trend toward superior survival for children who had biopsy after 100 days following SCT (p = 0.09; HR: 0.55) and a trend toward inferior survival for those with proven infections within two wk of biopsy (p = 0.07; HR: 2.14). Only 31% of allorecipients and 25% of autorecipients survived. There were no biopsy‐related complications. Lung biopsy itself appears to be well tolerated, although requiring a biopsy seems to carry a poor prognosis; this seems to be due to different causes, auto (relapse), allo (non‐infectious inflammation).