Clinical characteristics and risk factors for 90-day overall survival among 204 adult patients with secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis: Experience from a single-center retrospective study
Dongguang Wang, Tong Xiang, Sitong Liu, Wentao Zhang, Lian Wang, Shijie Zhang, Tianli Zhang, Qian Wang, Hong Fan
Abstract
Objectives To describe the clinical characteristics of secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) among adult patients, investigate its risk factors for 90-day overall survival (OS) from diagnosis, and establish a new prognostic model applicable to adult patients with secondary HLH. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 204 adult patients with secondary HLH, between January 2010 and December 2020. All patients met at least five HLH-2004 criteria. Clinical features, laboratory results, treatments, and clinical outcomes of the patients were reviewed. Prognostic factors associated with 90-day overall survival from diagnosis were screened using Cox proportional hazard models. Results The most common trigger was malignancy (61.3%). Multivariate analysis showed that age, coagulopathy, levels of hemoglobin, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatinine, ferritin, and prothrombin time (PT) were independent prognostic factors for 90-day OS from the diagnosis of HLH. Based on the above risk factors, the patients were further divided into two groups: low-risk (≤4 risk factors) and high-risk (>4 risk factors), with overall 90-day survival rates of 82.7 and 28.1%, respectively ( P < 0.001). Conclusion Patients with older age, coagulopathy, lower hemoglobin, and AST levels, elevated LDH, creatinine and ferritin levels, and prolonged PT tended to have a worse prognosis. Moreover, our prognostic model provides the possibility of forecasting the clinical outcome of adult secondary HLH patients, although a larger sample, multicenter, randomized controlled clinical study is needed to verify the accuracy of the prognostic model.