[Treatment of chronic graft-versus-host disease with protein tyrosine kinase inhibitors].

Abstract

Chronic graft versus host disease (GVHD) is still the main cause of long-term non-neoplastic morbidity and mortality in patients receiving an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Treatment consists of a combination of corticosteroids and calcineurin inhibitors. There is no standardized therapy for cases in which this treatment fails. Recent experimental studies and clinical trials in humans have yielded promising results for imatinib, an inhibitor of tyrosine kinase enzymes involved in the pathogenesis of fibrosis. This article reviews pathophysiologic aspects of scleroderma in the context of GVHD and systemic sclerosis, the experimental bases for the use of tyrosine kinase inhibitors in these diseases, and the first clinical results.