Journal
BEST PRACTICE & RESEARCH CLINICAL HAEMATOLOGY
Volume 21, Issue 2, Pages 281-289Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.beha.2008.03.003
Keywords
chronic graft versus host; autoimmune disease; tolerance
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Many of the clinical, histological and serological manifestations of chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) resemble autoimmune disease (AD), and although the differences are significant, they may be more semantic than biological. Indeed, studies suggest that some ADs may represent a fetal-versus-maternal chronic GVHD. Both conditions involve dysregulated immune responses resulting in tissue inflammation, damage, scarring and organ dysfunction, and both may be associated with a genetic predisposition. Epitope-specific autoaggressive phenomena such as immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) are often seen following allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HCT), implying a loss of specific tolerance to self structures. However, the more widespread manifestations of GVHD such as the well-known scleroderma-like symptoms differ in many fundamental respects from de-novo scleroderma, and other multisystem ADs such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) or rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
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