1088 - Extracorporeal Photopheresis and Infectious Complications in Patients with Chronic Graft Versus Host Disease

Background: Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP), is a cell-based immune-modulatory therapy used in the treatment of steroid refractory chronic graft versus host disease (cGHVD). It is unclear whether ECP is associated with an increased risk of infections compared to alternative treatment. We aimed to study the infectious complications in patients who are on ECP post allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (alloHSCT). 

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of adult patients with cGVHD post alloHSCT who were initiated on ECP or second line immunosuppressive agents (SLIS). The study period was from March 1, 2014 to October 1, 2018. Each subject in the ECP arm was matched to the SLIS arm according to gender, age, underlying disease, and date of diagnosis of cGVHD. All subjects were followed for one-year post treatment. The main outcome was incidence of each type of infection (event rate/ person-years). Kaplan Meier analysis was used, evaluating time to infection with log rank test. The spectrum of infectious complications was described.

Results: Seventy-seven patients were included (36 in ECP and 41 in SLIS arm). Median age was 57.4 years (18.1 -73.4), and 59.7% of patients were male. The most common underlying diseases were acute myeloid leukemia (45.4%), myelodysplastic syndrome (20.8%) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (15.6%). A total occurrence of 94 infections was observed in the ECP arm, compared to 118 in SLIS arm. Bacterial infections accounted for majority of the infections in ECP arm (50%) compared to SLIS arm in which viruses were most common (49.2%). Bacterial pneumonia was the most common clinical syndrome (34% and 27.3%, in the ECP and SLIS arms, respectively). Bacteremia accounted for 12.8% of infections in the ECP arm compared to 16.4% in the SLIS arm. There was no difference in the event rates of infections among the two groups [2.58/ person-years in ECP group vs 3.60/person-years, p = 0.3766], or the probability of infection at any time between the ECP and SLIS group on Kaplan Meier (log rank test, p-value=0.36)(Figure 1).Kaplan-Meier plot of time to the earliest infection diagnosis between ECP and control group


Conclusion: Bacterial and viral pneumonia were the most common infections in patients undergoing ECP. Overall, ECP does not confer an increased risk of infectious complications compared to second line IS agents.