Incidence and Causes of Hospital Readmission in Pediatric Patients after Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation

Allogeneic (allo) and autologous (auto) hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) provide the potential to cure otherwise fatal diseases but they are resource-intense therapies. There is scant literature describing the burden of hospital readmission in the critical 6-month period of immunosuppression after HCT. We report the incidence, causes, and outcomes of readmission in the 6 months after day 0 of HCT and in the 30 days after hospital discharge. This study is an institutional review board-approved retrospective medical record review of children who underwent HCT at a single institution. Between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2011, 291 children underwent HCT at our institute. Of these, 140 patients were excluded because they were not followed primarily at our institute for the first 6 months after transplantation, 14 patients were excluded because they died during their initial hospitalization, and 1 patient was excluded because the initial hospitalization was longer than 6 months. Of the remaining 136 patients, 63% had at least 1 readmission. Of the patients who underwent allo-HCT, 78% were readmitted, in contrast to 38% of auto-HCT patients (P < .001). For the 206 readmissions, the mean length of hospital stay was 10.7 days (range, 1 to 129). Seventy-two percent of auto-HCT patients were initially readmitted for fever, and 46% ultimately had a source identified. No risk factors for readmission were found in the auto-HCT group. Fifty-two percent of allo-HCT patients were readmitted for fever and 28% of these patients ultimately had an identified source. Gastrointestinal-related problems accounted for 30% of primary readmissions among allo-HCT patients. Patients with an unrelated donor had a trend towards increased rates of 30-day readmission (P = .06) and were more likely to have a second readmission (P = .002). Patients who were cytomegalovirus (CMV) positive before transplantation were more likely to be readmitted (P = .02). The majority of children who undergo HCT are readmitted during the critical 180 days after transplantation. Readmission is much more common among allo-HCT patients, in particular those with unrelated donors and CMV-positive serologies before transplantation. Fever is the most common cause of readmission in these patients, and serious infections are identified in a significant portion of patients. These findings and future research in this area will help improve both patient education and resource utilization.