Method
Patients were required to fulfil the following criteria for inclusion in
this retrospective study: (i) diagnosis of monomorphic PTLD, post-SOT,
established by a reference pathologist in accordance with WHO
Classification of Tumours of Haematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues, (ii)
commencement of treatment between January 2001 and December 2021, (iii)
age ≤19 years at time of diagnosis.
Following research ethics board approval and establishment of data
sharing agreements, data abstracted included: age and gender, SOT
received, immunosuppressive agents employed, subtype of monomorphic
PTLD, stage at presentation (as per Murphy or Ann Arbor), EBV status,
primary treatment approach, need for additional lines of treatment, and
outcome data: presence or absence of allograft dysfunction, date and
status at last follow-up.
Data analysis was primarily descriptive. Overall survival (OS) was
defined as time from diagnosis until death from any cause. Event-free
survival (EFS) was defined as time from diagnosis until relapse,
progressive disease, or death from any cause. OS and EFS were determined
using the Kaplan-Meier method with Cox proportional hazard modelling to
compare outcomes between chemotherapy groups. P-value ≤0.05 =
statistically significant. Statistical analysis was undertaken using R
statistical environment (v 3.3.3).