Initial therapy of chronic graft vs. host disease: Analysis of practice variation and failure-free survival.

Prior clinical trials largely considered prednisone 1mg/kg/day with or without calcineurin inhibitor as standard initial therapy for chronic graft vs. host disease (cGVHD) but uncertainty remains regarding the extent of practice variation and whether this affects subsequent outcomes. We assembled a cohort of 745 cGVHD patients treated with initial systemic immune suppressive (IS) therapy from three prior Chronic GVHD Consortium observational studies. Initial therapy was defined as first IS therapy started for cGVHD or prednisone increased to ≥ 0.4mg/kg/day from lower doses within 30 days before cGVHD diagnosis to any time afterward. Initial therapies were non-prednisone IS therapies (n=137, 18%), prednisone alone (n=411, 55%), or prednisone plus other IS therapy (n=197, 26%). In multivariate analysis, initial therapy group was not associated with FFS (failure-free survival, a composite of death, relapse, new IS therapy), overall survival (OS) or non-relapse mortality (NRM). Among the prednisone-based approaches, steroid dose (mg/kg/day) was 1.25 (13%). Prednisone dose within the steroid-treated patients was not significantly associated with FFS, OS, or NRM. No significant interactions were detected between overall cGVHD severity and either initial therapy group or prednisone dose for the outcomes of FFS, OS, or NRM. These observational data document heterogeneity in more contemporary cGVHD initial treatment practices, including prednisone dose and use of non-steroid approaches. This variation was not associated with FFS, OS, or NRM. Prospective trials are needed to verify efficacy of reduced-dose prednisone or prednisone-free initial therapy approaches.