Effect of vitamin D treatment in chronic GVHD.

摘要

Currently, there is no standard approach for patients with chronic GVHD (cGVHD) who do not respond to or who relapse after first-line treatment, and rescue therapy is based on immunosuppressive drugs and glucocorticoids, which are responsible for the development of severe complications. Vitamin D (Vit D) has a potent immuno-modulatory effect, as shown in vitro and in animal models, nevertheless there is no information about its use in the the cGVHD setting. We evaluated retrospectively the outcome of cGVHD in a series of 12 patients receiving vit D because of proved osteopenia or osteoporosis by bone densitometry after allo-HSCT. These patients also had active cGVHD at the time when vit D treatment was started. We observed a marked improvement in cGVHD for most of these patients, without appreciable secondary effects.