Graft versus Host (GvH) disease
Graft versus Host Disease (GvHD) is a common complication that occurs when the donor immune system perceives the patient’s organs and tissues as unfamiliar cells and should be destroyed. After a transplant your bone marrow starts making new blood cells from the donor stem cells. These new blood cells have the donor’s HLA pattern. They recognise the HLA pattern on your body cells as different (foreign) and may begin to attack some of them.
Some of the most common types of problems are:
- Skin GvH
- Liver GvH
- Gut GvH
- Lung GvH
- Eye GvH
GvHD is usually understood as Acute or Chronic. Mostly, acute GvH occurs during the first 100 days of transplant and is usually severe. Chronic may kick in anytime during the recovery phase and could last up to several months sometimes years.
Research has highlighted several reasons for occurrence of GvHD
- Unrelated Donor
- Age
- Donor could be of different sex
- Mismatch in the HLA
There is a lot of research in this area of GvHD that is currently in progress worldwide. Some of the leading Cancer institutions and hospitals are involved in arriving at ways to tackle the GvHD related problems as GvHD is also a major contributor to loss of lives after BMT.