1. Tregs and GvHD prevention by extracorporeal photopheresis: observations from a clinical trial.
- Author
-
Crocchiolo, Roberto, Cesana, Clara, Girgenti, Debora, Bertani, Giambattista, Barba, Claudia, Liga, Giuseppa, Ferri, Ursula, Crucitti, Lara, Grillo, Giovanni, Rossini, Silvano, and Cairoli, Roberto
- Subjects
- *
SUPPRESSOR cells , *CLINICAL trials , *GRAFT versus host disease - Abstract
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the circulating T regulatory cells (Tregs) in patients undergoing extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) for the prevention of chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and to search for any correlation between Tregs counts and chronic GvHD occurrence. Among n = 12 patients with complete longitudinal data, the median cumulative values of absolute peripheral Tregs counts were 21.64 and 63.49 cells/µL for patients who developed chronic GvHD and those who did not develop it, respectively (p = 0.05). The analysis of the median absolute counts of peripheral HLA-DR + Tregs provided similar results, showing that 20% (1 out of 5) and 100% (7 out of 7) of patients with HLA-DR + Tregs values of > 5 cells/µL were in the GvHD and non-GvHD groups, respectively (p = 0.01). In conclusion, the present results support the involvement of Tregs in the prevention of chronic GvHD in patients receiving ECP and suggest Tregs count as a potential biomarker of ECP effectiveness. Future strategies are needed to enhance Tregs expansion and/or activity in conjunction with ECP for an effective chronic GvHD prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF