The health risk of social disadvantage is transplantable into a new host. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024 Jul 23;121(30):e2404108121
Date
07/15/2024Pubmed ID
39008669Pubmed Central ID
PMC11287259DOI
10.1073/pnas.2404108121Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85199015473 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)Abstract
Low socioeconomic status (SES) is a risk factor for mortality and immune dysfunction across a wide range of diseases, including cancer. However, cancer is distinct in the use of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) as a treatment for hematologic malignancies to transfer healthy hematopoietic cells from one person to another. This raises the question of whether social disadvantage of an HCT cell donor, as assessed by low SES, might impact the subsequent health outcomes of the HCT recipient. To evaluate the cellular transplantability of SES-associated health risk, we analyzed the health outcomes of 2,005 HCT recipients who were transplanted for hematologic malignancy at 125 United States transplant centers and tested whether their outcomes differed as a function of their cell donor's SES (controlling for other known HCT-related risk factors). Recipients transplanted with cells from donors in the lowest quartile of SES experienced a 9.7% reduction in overall survival (P = 0.001) and 6.6% increase in treatment-related mortality within 3 y (P = 0.008) compared to those transplanted from donors in the highest SES quartile. These results are consistent with previous research linking socioeconomic disadvantage to altered immune cell function and hematopoiesis, and they reveal an unanticipated persistence of those effects after cells are transferred into a new host environment. These SES-related disparities in health outcomes underscore the need to map the biological mechanisms involved in the social determinants of health and develop interventions to block those effects and enhance the health of both HCT donors and recipients.
Author List
Turcotte LM, Wang T, Beyer KM, Cole SW, Spellman SR, Allbee-Johnson M, Williams E, Zhou Y, Verneris MR, Rizzo JD, Knight JMAuthors
Kirsten M. Beyer PhD, MPH Professor in the Institute for Health and Equity department at Medical College of WisconsinJennifer M. Knight MD, MS Professor in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine department at Medical College of Wisconsin
J. Douglas Rizzo MD, MS Director, Center Associate Director, Professor in the Medicine department at Medical College of Wisconsin
MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AdolescentAdult
Aged
Female
Hematologic Neoplasms
Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Risk Factors
Social Class
Tissue Donors
United States
