Impact of Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease on Non-Relapse Mortality

Introduction-Chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) poses as a major late complication of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The role of cGVHD as a determinant in transplant-related morbidity and mortality, infectious complications, prolonged immune suppression, and impaired patient-reported quality of life has been extensively studied. Nonetheless, numerous advances in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (allo-SCT) in recent years have expanded the indications for allo-SCT to a broader range of patients, including previously excluded older patients. However, long-term health status of older transplant recipients is poorly studied. Notably, the incidence of cGVHD may increase with age. Therefore, the development of cGVHD and the use of immunosuppressive therapy may lead to a higher degree of non-relapse mortality (NRM) in older patients. The objective of this study was to compare the NRM in both younger and older transplant recipients with and without cGVHD. Methods-We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients that underwent allo-SCT at the Ohio State University from 1999 to 2018. Data was analyzed from 1194 patients who survived or have been followed up with by at least day (d) 180 post-transplantation, among which 373 patients had developed cGVHD. Patients were grouped based on their age into a younger and older population. The older population was defined as ≥60 (N=373, 31%) with the younger population defined as