PHOTOTHERAPY IN THE TREATMENT OF CUTANEOUS GRAFT-VERSUS-HOST DISEASE - OUR PRELIMINARY EXPERIENCE IN RESISTANT PATIENTS

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD)* is a frequent complication of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. The potentially beneficial effect of phototherapy for treatment of cutaneous manifestations of GVHD led us to investigate retrospectively the effect of this therapy in a larger series of patients. Eleven patients with cutaneous GVHD (acute GVHD in 4 patients, chronic lichenoid GVHD in 6 patients, and chronic sclerodermatous GVHD in 1 patient) resistant to standard immunosuppressive drugs were treated with phototherapy. Skin lesions showed a complete clearing in 75% of patients with acute GVHD, and a response rate of 70% was observed in patients with chronic GVHD. No effect of phototherapy was achieved in 3 patients. Our results suggest that phototherapy is a nonaggressive treatment that may benefit patients with cutaneous GVHD, who already take high doses of immunosuppressive drugs.