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Effect of vitamin D treatment in chronic GVHD

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 46, pages 1395–1397 (2011)Cite this article

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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.1 Vitamin D (Vit D) has a potent immunomodulatory 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.

Chronic GVHD was classified as limited versus extensive, and also the National Institutes of Health scoring system2 was used, based on the data collected from the medical files of the patients. The first-line treatment for cGVHD was CsA or tacrolimus plus prednisone at 1 mg/kg per day, which was switched to alternating days after 4 weeks of treatment. Patient characteristics are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1 Patient characteristics at transplant
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  1. J A Pérez-Simón

    Present address: 2Current address: Servicio de Hematología, Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla (IBIS) Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío/CSIC/Universidad de Sevilla, Salamanca, Spain,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Servicio de Hematología, Hospital Clínico Universitario y Centro de Investigación del Cáncer (CIC/CSIC) de Salamanca, Centro en Red de Medicina Regenerativa y Terapia Celular de Castilla y León, Salamanca, Spain. E-mail: josea.perez.simon.sspa@juntadeandalucia.es,

    F Silva, J A Pérez-Simón, T Caballero-Velazquez, F M Sánchez-Guijo, F Villanueva-Gomez, L Vazquez, C del Cañizo, D Caballero & J San Miguel

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  1. F Silva
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  2. J A Pérez-Simón
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  3. T Caballero-Velazquez
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  4. F M Sánchez-Guijo
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Silva, F., Pérez-Simón, J., Caballero-Velazquez, T. et al. Effect of vitamin D treatment in chronic GVHD. Bone Marrow Transplant 46, 1395–1397 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/bmt.2010.317

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