METHODS
This study was conducted at the HSCT Unit of Hospital Pequeno Príncipe in Curitiba, Brazil, one of the largest pediatric HSCT centers in Brazil. Mostly financed by public resources, the center has been performing autologous HSCTs since 2011. Subsequently, allo-HSCT was established for matched sibling donors (MSD) (2013), haploidentical donors (2014), and unrelated donors (2017). This is a retrospective study based on descriptive and quantitative analyses. Data was obtained from the hospital database with prior local Ethics Committee approval (3.318.929).
Patient cohort
From January 2013 to December 2018, 122 patients under 18 years of age underwent allo-HSCT. From this initial group, those who experienced primary graft failure (n=7), received stem cells from umbilical cord blood (n=3) or did not undergo a conditioning regimen (n=1) were excluded. The final cohort included 111 patients. For lymphocyte recovery analysis, patients who experienced secondary graft failure or relapse, those who died before each cut-off day, and those with incomplete history were also excluded.