Prior anti-PD-1 therapy as a risk factor for life-threatening peri-engraftment respiratory distress syndrome in patients undergoing autologous stem cell transplantation

Peri-engraftment respiratory distress syndrome (PERDS) is a kind of potentially life-threatening complication of autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT). PERDS is characterized by fever, dyspnea, and hypoxemia during neutrophil engraftment. In order to identify the high-risk factors for PERDS, we retrospectively analyzed 260 patients with lymphoma undergoing ASCT in recent five years. The conditioning regimen was BuCyE (busulfan, cyclophosphamide, and etoposide). There were 16 patients (6.1%) diagnosed as PERDS. In multivariate analysis, prior anti-programmed death-1 (PD-1) therapy (hazard ratio [HR] = 8.852, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.954–26.527, P