Real-World Experience in Extracorporeal Photopheresis for Adults with Graft-versus-Host Disease.

Transplantation and cellular therapy 2023 Dec

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Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) has shown efficacy in treating graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). We aim to summarize eight years of real-world experience with off-line ECP in our institution, in order to validate this treatment schedule and analyze predictive factors. All consecutive adult patients with steroid-dependent or steroid-refractory GVHD undergoing off-line ECP were included in this single-center retrospective study. ECP was performed with a Spectra Optia device, processing 1 total blood volume, at a twice-weekly frequency for acute GVHD (aGVHD) and once weekly for chronic GVHD (cGVHD), and tapered individually according to clinical response. The cumulative incidence of response, including complete response (CR) and partial response (PR), were compared among patients grouped by different baseline, apheresis, and disease characteristics. Between January 2015 and May 2022, a total of 1382 ECP procedures were proposed for 82 patients. No incidents were reported in 97% of the ECP sessions. GVHD responded in 78% of patients (aGVHD: 57% CR and 4% PR; cGVHD, 39% CR and 48% PR). Overall survival was statistically greater for aGVHD patients who responded to ECP compared to those who did not respond (67.5% versus 26% at 1 year; P = 0.037). Severity was an independent predictor of response in aGVHD, whereas the absence of mouth involvement and lower lymphocyte counts in the apheresis product correlated with a higher response in cGVHD. Our findings support the effectiveness of this treatment schedule for GVHD. Further investigation is required to identify ECP-specific predictive factors, given that findings are not homogeneous across studies. Copyright © 2023 The American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Citation

Pedro Asensi Cantó, Jaime Sanz Caballer, Clara Sopeña Pell-Ilderton, Jürgen Solís Ruiz, Pilar Lloret Madrid, Marta Villalba Montaner, Ana Facal Malvar, Pedro Chorão, Manuel Guerreiro, Aitana Balaguer Roselló, Juan Montoro Gómez, Marta Santiago Balsera, Pilar Solves Alcaína, Miguel Ángel Sanz Alonso, Javier De la Rubia Comos, Inés Gómez-Seguí. Real-World Experience in Extracorporeal Photopheresis for Adults with Graft-versus-Host Disease. Transplantation and cellular therapy. 2023 Dec;29(12):765.e1-765.e8