Dr. Schroeder on Treatment Options for GVHD

Mark A. Schroeder, MD, an associate professor at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, discusses therapies currently available and being investigated to treat patients with graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).

The only FDA-approved therapy for treating patients with GVHD is ruxolitinib (Jakafi), explains Schroeder. The administration of ruxlotinib depends on the institution and patient, including whether they can tolerate oral medicine. If not, there are other avenues of decreasing T-cell proliferation to help the damage induced by GVHD that could be given intravenously, says Schroeder.

There is currently no standard of care for steroid-refractory GVHD, but ruxolitinib seems to be the most common choice, according to Schroeder. The overall response rates on day 28 of a phase II trial (NCT02953678) were 100% for grade 2 GVHD, 40.7% for grade 3 GVHD, and 44.4% for grade 4 GVHD. Other novel therapies in development, as prophylaxis or treatment, that will be explored in larger randomized trials, concludes Schroeder.