Graft versus host disease (A-GVHD) is a systemic disease that affects bone marrow transplant patients receiving immunocompetent lymphocytes. The pathophysiology of this phenomenon is complex and involves a number of different effector immune responses to antigenic stimuli that are expressed due to tissue damage caused by disease or conditioning. This complication is frequent in bone marrow transplants and often determines the clinical outcome. In this chapter we discuss aspects of the biology of chronic graft versus host disease, its clinical evolution and the prophylactic and therapeutic management of this problem which can be devastating for patients undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.
Bone marrow transplantation; graft vs host disease; hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
