Solving Lymphoma’s Stem-Cell Problem

November 14, 2018

(Nature) – Up to half of allogeneic transplant recipients experience acute GvHD. This is a severe immune reaction that occurs in the first 100 days after the procedure and can rapidly become life-threatening. Then there is the long-term immune assault of chronic GvHD. Chronic GvHD affects up to around 40% of transplant recipients, and the incidence has been slowly rising in recent years. This is partly due to the increased use of peripheral-blood stem-cell donations, which bring increased survival but at the expense of a higher chance of long-term GvHD. There is also a greater willingness to attempt potentially curative but less damaging ‘mini-transplants’ for older patients, even though they are more likely to develop GvHD.