Safety and Feasibility of Rehabilitation Interventions in Children Undergoing Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant With Thrombocytopenia.

Objective: To analyze the relation between platelet counts, intensities of physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) services received, and frequencies of bleeding complications in children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) during a period of severe thrombocytopenia.

Design: Retrospective review study.

Setting: Tertiary care hospital.

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for nonmalignant hematologic disorders using chemotherapy-only cytoreductive regimens and T-cell-depleted grafts from human leukocyte antigen-matched or -mismatched donors.

Nonmalignant hematologic disorders (NMHD) of childhood comprise a variety of disorders, including acquired severe aplastic anemia and inherited marrow failure syndromes. Patients with high-risk NMHD without matched related donors fare poorly with allogeneic hematopoietic alternative donor stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) and are at high risk for developing graft-versus-host disease following unmodified grafts. The authors retrospectively analyzed data on 18 patients affected by NMHD, lacking a human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-identical sibling donor, who underwent an alternative donor allo-HSCT at their institution between April 2005 and May 2013.