ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To analyze the impact of the occurrence and severity of acute and chronic graft versus host disease (GVHD) on the long-term outcome of allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (allo-PBSCT) for leukemia.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A total of 231 patients with leukemia, who underwent allo-HSCT in Changhai Hospital from Jan 1st, 2001 to Dec 31th, 2011, were retrospectively analyzed. The overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), transplantation-related mortality (TRM) and relapse rate (RR) were estimated according to the degree of acute and chronic GVHD.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>(1) Among the 224 assessable patients, aGVHD was observed in 85 patients, in which 46 developed grade I, 25 grade II and 14 grade III-IV. A total of 213 patients who survived beyond 100 days, cGVHD was observed in 109 patients, in which 84 developed limited cGVHD and 25 extensive cGVHD. (2)The incidence of 3-year OS and EFS of patients with aGVHD grade 0-I was significantly higher than that of grade II-IV (69.5% vs 33.6%, P<0.01; 60.7% vs 33.7%, P<0.01). The 3-year TRM of patients with 0-I grade aGVHD was significantly lower than that of the grade II-IV group (15.0% vs 56.7%, P<0.01). (3)The 5-year OS of patients with limited cGVHD was higher than patients without or with extensive cGVHD (79.8% vs 55.6% and 56.4%, P<0.01 and P=0.038, respectively). The 5-year TRM in patients with extensive cGVHD was higher than patients with limited cGVHD (14.1% vs 41.1%, P=0.018). However, the 5-year RR in patients without cGVHD was higher than patients with limited cGVHD or extensive cGVHD (47.2% vs 10.9% and 12.4%, P<0.01 and P=0.007, respectively). (4) The COX analysis showed that unrelated donor and myeloablative conditioning regimen were main factors affecting aGVHD; Meanwhile, aGVHD was the only factor affecting the cGVHD.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Our results showed that the patients with acute GVHD tended to have poor outcomes, especially with grade III-IV. On the contrary, the patients with limited cGVHD had lower RR and a long-term DFS.</p>