Current therapies prevent chronic GVHD equally well
Better options needed to prevent graft-versus-host disease
Age1-65 years old
Number of Participants346
Research GoalImprove Survival
Chronic graft-versus-host disease, or CGVHD, affects about half of people after blood or marrow transplant (BMT). CGVHD can be serious. CGVHD can affect:
- digestive system
- eyes
- genitals
- joints and muscles
- lungs
- mouth
- skin and nails
Standard treatments don’t prevent all cases of CGVHD. And using medicines for a long time may cause side effects.
A recent clinical trial compared 2 new short-term treatments against 1 standard long-term treatment. The new treatments were not better than the standard, but all 3 treatments had the same proportion of patients who were alive without cancer relapse or significant CGVHD.
The trial included 300 people in the US and Germany who had blood cancer, including either acute leukemia or myelodysplastic syndromes. Everyone got a BMT during 2015-2018 with a matched donor.
People randomly got 1 of these 3 treatments:
- CD34-selected peripheral blood transplant
- A medicine called cyclophosphamide, after bone marrow transplant
- A standard, long-term combination of 2 medicines, tacrolimus and methotrexate, after bone marrow transplant
After 2 years, CGVHD was controlled similarly, and:
- The CD34-selected transplant group members did not live as long as the other groups
- The cyclophosphamide group had fewer relapses and lived as long the standard group
- The standard treatment group members were less likely to die from complications.
Keep in mind
Ask your doctor what is best for you.
Learn more about
- CGVHD clinical trials at CTSearchSupport.org
- More study summaries at CIBMTR.org