Background: Cytomegalovirus reactivation (CMV-react) is an indicator for the worse non-relapse mortality (NRM) and overall survival (OS) after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation using HLA-matched related donor (MRD) and unrelated donor (URD) for adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL). However, it remains unclear whether CMV-react correlates with outcomes after unrelated cord blood (U-CB) transplantation.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective nationwide study to evaluate the impact of CMV-react on the outcomes after posttransplant 100 days. Data were collected from 205, 461, and 268 patients who used MRD, URD, and U-CB, respectively, between 2001 and 2022 and survived without relapse for over 100 days after transplantation.
Results: In multivariate analyses, CMV-react correlated with worse OS in the MRD (hazard ratio [HR], 1.56; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.02-2.39; p = 0.04) and URD groups (HR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.00-2.09; p = 0.05), but not in the U-CB group (HR, 1.34; 95% CI, 0.88-2.03; p = 0.2). CMV-react correlated with higher NRM in the MRD (HR, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.01-3.16; p = 0.05) and URD groups (HR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.01-2.82; p = 0.05), but not in the U-CB group (HR, 1.16; 95% CI, 0.62-2.19; p = 0.6). CMV-react did not correlate with the incidence of relapse in any group.
Conclusion: CMV-react was not associated with the outcomes in the U-CB group, while CMV-react correlates with worse OS and NRM in the MRD and URD groups, indicating the need for a more intensive strategy for late-phase complications in U-CB transplantation for ATL with and without CMV-react.
Keywords: adult T‐cell leukemia/lymphoma; allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation; cytomegalovirus.
© 2025 The Author(s). Transplant Infectious Disease published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.