Allogeneic Skin Grafting in the Treatment of Chronic Cutaneous Graft-versus-host Disease: a Pilot Study

While the mechanisms are still under active study, GVHD is thought to be a donor T-cell mediated attack that preferentially targets three organs: skin, intestine, and liver. T lymphocytes from the donor identify the patient's organ tissues as foreign and initiate inflammation, leading to end organ damage. The investigator's traditional approach has been to use immune suppressing drugs to dampen this inflammatory response after transplantation. However, this approach is ultimately ineffective for a significant percentage of patients. Therefore, the primary objective of this proposal is to test a novel non-immunosuppressive approach to treatment of cutaneous GVHD using allogeneic skin grafting in an effort to tolerize the engrafted immune system to skin it previously recognized as foreign. The potential benefit to transplant patients is tremendous, including reduced immunosuppression, improved quality of life and lower mortality.

A potential novel approach is to apply split-thickness skin grafts from the bone marrow donor to the affected patient's skin. There are four existing case reports that have shown positive outcomes in wound healing in chronic GVHD-associated ulcers. In all four cases, skin grafts were harvested from the patient's allogeneic HLA-matched sibling donors and placed over non-healing wounds (2-5). One case described global improvement in affected skin distant from the site of skin graft application, allowing for tapering of immunosuppressive medications. This suggests potential induction of tolerance by immune cells within the donated skin.