The impact of transplant location on the gut microbiome and resistome in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation at home versus in the hospital.

Objectives: Home-based hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) is a novel approach that has the potential to improve outcomes, however, the impact of transplant location on the gut microbiome remains uncharacterized. We hypothesized that patients randomized to undergo home HCT would have higher gut taxonomic diversity and lower antimicrobial resistance (AMR) gene abundance compared to those undergoing standard hospital HCT.

Methods: We identified 28 patients enrolled in Phase II randomized trials of home (n=16) v. hospital (n=12) HCT at Duke and performed shotgun metagenomic sequencing of stools to compare taxonomic and AMR gene composition between groups. We performed a secondary analysis of patients from each group transplanted at an outpatient infusion clinic with those who underwent standard inpatient HCT ("outpatient" v. "inpatient").

Results: No significant differences in duration of hospitalization were found in those randomized to home v. hospital HCT. Taxonomic and AMR gene α- and β-diversity were comparable. In contrast, secondary analyses demonstrated that patients from both home and hospital groups transplanted at an outpatient infusion clinic spent significantly less time in the hospital and demonstrated higher taxonomic α-diversity and differential β-diversity compared to standard inpatient HCT, although AMR gene α-diversity did not differ, and comparisons were confounded by both differences in transplant type and use of antibiotics.

Conclusions: Randomization by transplant location did not impact the gut microbiota to the same extent as the duration of hospitalization, although secondary analyses were heavily confounded. Even when taxonomic differences were observed, AMR genes were similar between groups.