Description of Research Expertise

Allogeneic blood or marrow transplantation is the only potentially curative option for patients with relapsed, refractory, or high-risk hematologic malignancies. Unfortunately, only a third of patients have an available HLA-matched related donor. Partially HLA-mismatched related (HLA-haploidentical) transplantation allows identification of a donor for the vast majority of patients. In the past, HLA-haploidentical transplantation was associated with excessive nonrelapse mortality and poor overall survival. My research has contributed to the understanding of a novel technique that utilizes post-transplant cyclophosphamide as graft-versus-host disease prophylaxis after HLA-haploidentical transplantation. Using risk stratification with the disease risk index developed by Armand et al., I demonstrated that outcomes after nonmyeloablative HLA-haploidentical transplantation are comparable to that after reduced intensity HLA-matched transplantation. Similar to my work in older patients described above, I have also shown that nonmyeloablative HLA-haploidentical transplantation is safe and effective for pediatric and young adult patients. In addition, I have contributed to research examining early biomarkers, such as ST2, as predictors of nonrelapse mortality after HLA-haploidentical transplantation. Finally, to improve outcomes further, I have conducted research to examine the association of donor characteristics with transplantation outcomes. I showed that parent donors were associated with more graft failure when compared with sibling or offspring donors, but that survival was no different. Importantly, in that analysis, survival was affected by recipient age with recipients over 55 having inferior survival to younger patients. This work supports my proposed research agenda to evaluate the utility of the frailty phenotype tools to predict an older patient’s risk of nonrelapse mortality after induction chemotherapy and allogeneic transplantation as discussed in this proposal. Finally, my research has contributed to the widespread adoption of HLA-haploidentical transplantation with post-transplant cyclophosphamide, I have advanced the understanding of how we can improve its outcomes further, and I hope to continue to advance the field through studying frailty phenotype assessments in older patients with leukemia and myeloid malignancies undergoing induction then consolidative allogeneic transplantation.

Selected Publications

Craig W Freyer, Alison Carulli, Alex Ganetsky, Mitchell E Hughes, Tracy M Krause, Colleen Timlin, Noelle V Frey, Saar I Gill, Elizabeth O Hexner, Alison W Loren, James K Mangan, Mary Ellen Martin, Shannon R McCurdy, Alexander E Perl, Keith Pratz, David L Porter, Selina M Luger: Venous thromboembolism following pegaspargase in adults receiving antithrombin supplementation Leukemia and Lymphoma : 2020.

Gee Youn (Geeny) Kim Jonathan Burns Craig W. Freyer Keith W. Hamilton Noelle V. Frey Saar I. Gill Elizabeth O. Hexner Selina M. Luger James K. Mangan Mary E. Martin Shannon R. McCurdy Alexander E. Perl David L. Porter Mindy G. Schuster Edward A. Stadtmauer Alison W. Loren: Risk of invasive fungal infections in patients with high‐risk MDS and AML receiving hypomethylating agents American Journal of Hematology : 2020.

Yu Kang, Bruna Leal Assuncao, Srinivas Denduluri, Shannon McCurdy, Selina Luger, Bénédicte Lefebvre, Joseph Carver and Marielle Scherrer-Crosbie: Symptomatic Heart Failure in Acute Leukemia Patients Treated With Anthracyclines JACC: CardioOncology 1 (2): 2019.

Shannon R. McCurdy, MD1, Shannon H. Gier, BS1*, Daria V. Babushok, MD, PhD2, Noelle V. Frey, MD3, Saar I. Gill, MD, PhD4, Elizabeth O. Hexner, MD3*, Alison W. Loren, MD, MSCE3, James K. Mangan, MD, PhD3, Mary Ellen Martin, MD3, Alexander E. Perl, MD3, Ivan Maillard, MD, PhD5, Keith W. Pratz, MD6, David L. Porter, MD7, Martin P. Carroll, MD8, Phyllis A. Gimotty, PhD9* and Selina M. Luger, MD, FRCPC3: Fried Frailty Phenotype Predicts Mortality for Newly Diagnosed Older Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia or High Risk Myelodysplastic Syndrome Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology 2019 : 2019.

McCurdy Shannon R, Luznik Leo: How we perform haploidentical stem cell transplantation with posttransplant cyclophosphamide. Blood 134 (21): 1802-1810,2019.

Murdock HM1, Kim HT2, Hambley B3, Vachhani P4, Denlinger N5, Gier SH6, Cho C7, Perales MA8, Koreth J9, Ho VT10, Soiffer RJ11, McCurdy SR6, Carroll M12, Vasu S5, Wang ES4, Gondek LP3, Devine S13, Alyea EP14, Gibson CJ10, Lindsley RC14.: Genetic Alterations at Diagnosis Predict Outcome of AML Patients Age 60 or Older Undergoing Allogeneic Transplantation in First Remission. Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology 2019 : 2019.

McCurdy Shannon R, Luznik Leo: Post-transplantation cyclophosphamide for chimerism-based tolerance. Bone marrow transplantation 54 (Suppl 2): 769-774,2019.

McCurdy Shannon R, Luznik Leo: Immune reconstitution after T-cell replete HLA-haploidentical transplantation. Seminars in hematology 56 (3): 221-226,2019.

McCurdy Shannon R, Kanakry Christopher G, Tsai Hua-Ling, Gojo Ivana, Smith B Douglas, Gladstone Douglas E, Bolaños-Meade Javier, Borrello Ivan, Matsui William H, Swinnen Lode J, Huff Carol Ann, Brodsky Robert A, Ambinder Richard F, Fuchs Ephraim J, Rosner Gary L, Jones Richard J, Luznik Leo: Development of Grade II Acute Graft-versus-Host Disease Is Associated with Improved Survival after Myeloablative HLA-Matched Bone Marrow Transplantation using Single-Agent Post-Transplant Cyclophosphamide. Biology of blood and marrow transplantation : journal of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation 25 (6): 1128-1135,2019.

McCurdy Shannon R, Muth Stephen T, Tsai Hua-Ling, Symons Heather J, Huff Carol Ann, Matsui William H, Borrello Ivan, Gladstone Douglas E, Swinnen Lode J, Cooke Kenneth R, Brodksy Robert A, Bolaños-Meade Javier, Ambinder Richard F, Varadhan Ravi, Luznik Leo, Jones Rick J, Bettinotti Maria P, Fuchs Ephraim J: Early Fever after Haploidentical BMT Correlates with Class II HLA-Mismatching and Myeloablation but not Outcomes. Biology of blood and marrow transplantation : journal of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation 35 (26): 2056-2064,2018.

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Academic Contact Information

Department of Hematology Oncology
3400 Civic Center Blvd
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104
Patient appointments: 800-789-7366