Chronic graft-versus-host disease: is there an alternative to the conventional treatment?

Despite conventional and new therapies for the treatment of chronic GVHD (c GVHD), this syndrome continues to account for significant morbidity and mor tality after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. With the e xpanded use of allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell transplantation, match ed unrelated as well as mismatched related donors there is an increased inc idence of cGVHD that poses a new clinical challenge, Over the past 10 years some new agents have been used, particularly, as a salvage therapy for the treatment of cGVHD, Many of the new agents discussed in this paper may hav e a role in the future as a therapy for cGVHD, Randomized clinical trials m ust be performed earlier in the course of cGVHD to establish the efficacy o f these new drugs.