Safety and Efficacy of Extracorporeal Photopheresis for Acute and Chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease.

Despite novel biological agents, steroid-dependent or -refractory graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) remains a severe complication of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT). Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) is an alternative, non-immunosuppressive treatment for patients with acute (aGvHD) or chronic (cGvHD) GvHD. The aim of this study was to investigate the safety and efficacy of ECP in the treatment of acute and chronic GvHD; We prospectively studied 112 patients with cGvHD who received one or more previous lines of treatment and 28 patients with steroid-dependent or refractory grade II-IV aGvHD post-alloHSCT.

Alteration of Gut Microbiota Composition and Diversity in Acute and/or Chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease Following Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: A Prospective Cohort Study.

Changes in gut microbiome composition have been implicated in the pathogenesis of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). Our objective was to explore the microbial abundance in patients with GvHD after allo-HSCT. We conducted a single-center, prospective study in patients who underwent allo-HSCT and developed grade II or higher acute GvHD and/or moderate or severe chronic GvHD, to explore the microbial abundance of taxa at the phylum, family, genus, and species level, and we utilized alpha and beta diversity indices to further describe our findings.

Open-Label Randomized Controlled Study of Ciprofloxacin vs Rifaximin as Neutropenia Prophylaxis in Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation.

Loss of microbiota diversity has been clearly associated with poor outcomes in the allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation setting. However, the choice of the optimal antibiotic prophylaxis during the pre-engraftment phase remains unclear. We designed a prospective randomized study to compare our standard-of-care neutropenia prophylaxis (ciprofloxacin) with rifaximin.

Intestinal thrombotic microangiopathy: a distinct entity in the spectrum of graft-versus-host disease.

Transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy (TA-TMA) is a severe complication of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) with multisystem involvement. Cases of TMA in the intestinal vasculature (intestinal TMA/iTMA) have been reported. We hypothesized that iTMA is a distinct entity from TA-TMA.

Correction to: Clinical-scale production of Aspergillus-specific T cells for the treatment of invasive aspergillosis in the immunocompromised host.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Clinical-scale production of Aspergillus-specific T cells for the treatment of invasive aspergillosis in the immunocompromised host.

Invasive aspergillosis (IA) represents a leading cause of mortality in immunocompromised patients. Although adoptive immunotherapy with Aspergillus-specific T cells (Asp-STs) represents a promising therapeutic approach against IA, the complex and costly production limits its broader application. We generated Asp-STs from a single blood draw of healthy individuals or IA patients in only 10 days, by either Aspergillus fumigatus (AF) lysate or peptide stimulation of mononuclear cells.

Favorable impact of extracorporeal photopheresis in acute and chronic graft versus host disease: Prospective single-center study.

Background: Graft vs host disease (GVHD) is the most severe complication of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Conventional immunosuppressive therapy increases morbidity and mortality without improving survival. Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) has been introduced as an alternative treatment in steroid-dependent and steroid-refractory disease.