How to calculate the quantity of CD34+ cells infused? A single center cohort study based on actual, ideal or adjusted ideal body weight

Transplant physicians are generally using the recipient’s actual body weight (ABW) for the calculation of the content of CD34+ cells in the harvest material in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). As a reference center performing both the stem cell collection and HSCTs, we aimed to evaluate whether there were any differences for neutrophil recovery by calculating the CD34+ cell content in the graft according to actual, ideal (IBW) or adjusted IBW (AIBW) of the recipients in both autologous (n = 148) and allogeneic stem cell collection setting (n = 234). We observed a negative correlation between the neutrophil recovery and the cell doses infused as to each of these BWs in the allo-HSCT group, but not in the auto-HSCT group. This negative correlation was stronger for IBW and AIBW rather than for ABW in allo-HSCT group. In addition, calculations for both IBW and AIBW in autologous and allogeneic transplants revealed a significant difference in comparison to ABW for different cut-off values of infused CD34+ cells. Consequently, we suggested that both IBW and AIBW based calculations of CD34+ cells infused are better predictors of neutrophil recovery in comparison to ABW in allo-HSCT. We were not able to show this impact in autologous transplants.