JSHCT meeting symposium report: current status and future perspective of chronic graft-versus-host disease

Abstract

 Chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) occurs in approximately 30-50% of patients after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation and is the leading cause of late morbidity, mortality and impaired quality of life. Besides steroids and calcineurin inhibitors, modalities to prevent or treat chronic GVHD are limited in Japan. Several clinical trials of newer modalities such as extracorporeal photopheresis, low-dose interleukin-2 and tamibarotene have been completed recently and await approval. In the symposium of the 39th JSHCT meeting, the current understandings in mechanistic biology of chronic GVHD and characteristics of chronic GVHD in the Japanese population were discussed. In addition, the results of transplant physician survey on the current practices in chronic GVHD management were discussed. The highlights included talks from international experts about most recent topics and discussion about future perspectives of chronic GVHD. This report summarizes contents of the symposium.