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In patients with hematologic malignancies and other serious blood disorders, hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) often is the only effective curative treatment. Short-term morbidity and mortality from relapsing disease or HCT-related complications are well recognized. To assess long-term patient survival following autologous or allogeneic HCT, investigators followed patients who underwent transplantation and survived at least 5 years without recurrence of primary disease.
Of 7984 patients treated with HCT at a single institution from 1970 through 2002, 2574 (32%) were 5-year survivors. In this survivor cohort, 357 patients (14%) later died (median follow-up, 13.1 years). Causes of late mortality (in decreasing order of frequency) were p…