Ruxolitinib therapy to treat corticosteroid-refractory acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in transplant recipients can achieve response rates >80%, according to a multi-center study of 95 patients treated with this JAK1/2 inhibitor. In this retrospective study, 54 patients had grades III or IV acute GVHD and 41 patients had moderate or severe chronic GVHD. In each group, the median number of previous therapies to treat GVHD was 3. The overall response rate was 81.5% in acute GVHD patients, including 25 complete responses (46.3%). In chronic GVHD patients, the overall response rate was 85.4%. In patients responding to ruxolitinib, the rate of GVHD-relapse was 6.8% and 5.7% for acute GVHD and chronic GVHD, respectively.
Ruxolitinib Effective in Treating Steroid-Refractory GVHD
Sep 2015