National Institutes of Health (NIH) Chronic GVHD Staging in Severely Affected Patients: Organ and Global Scoring Correlate with Established Indicators of Disease Severity and Prognosis

• Published in: Biology of blood and marrow transplantation 2013-01, Vol.19 (4), p.632-639
• Main Authors: Baird, K., Steinberg, S.M., Grkovic, L., Pulanic, D., Cowen, E.W., Mitchell, S.A., Williams, K.M., Datiles, M.B., Bishop, R., Bassim, C.W., Mays, J.W., Edwards, D., Cole, K., Avila, D.N., Taylor, T., Urban, A., Joe, G.O., Comis, L.E., Berger, A., Stratton, P., Zhang, D., Shelhamer, J.H., Gea-Banacloche, J.C., Sportes, C., Fowler, D.H., Gress, R.E., Pavletic, S.Z.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1083-8791; 1523-6536
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bbmt.2013.01.013

Between 2004 and 2010, 189 adult patients were enrolled on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) cross-sectional chronic Graft-versus-Host disease (cGVHD) natural history study. Patients were evaluated by multiple disease scales and outcome measures including the 2005 NIH Consensus Project cGVHD severity score. The purpose of this study is to assess the validity of the NIH scoring variables as determinants of disease severity in severely affected patients in order to standardize clinician evaluation and staging of cGVHD. 125 of 189 patients met criteria for severe cGVHD on the NIH global score and 62 had moderate disease, with a median of 4 (range 1–8) involved organs. Clinician average NIH organ score and the corresponding organ scores performed by subspecialists were highly correlated (r=0.64). NIH global severity scores showed significant associations with nearly all functional and quality of life outcome measures including Lee Scale, SF-36 Physical Component Scale (PCS), 2 minutes walk, grip strength, range of motion and Human Activity Profile (HAP). Joints/fascia, skin, and lung involvement impacted function and quality of life most significantly and showed highest number of correlations with outcome measures. The final Cox model showing factors jointly predictive for survival contained the time from cGVHD diagnosis (>49 vs. ≤49 months, HR=0.23; p=0.0011), absolute eosinophil count of (0–0.5 vs. >0.5 cells/µL, HR=3.95; p=0.0006) at the time of NIH evaluation, and NIH lung score (3 vs. 0–2, HR=11.02; p