[Musculoskeletal manifestations in patients after bone marrow transplantation. Initial clinical rheumatologic...

From January 1986 through January 1989 69 adult patients received bone marrow transplants--20 with autologous, and 49 with allogeneic bone marrow. Ten patients after autologous and 33 patients after allogeneic transplantation (TX) could be examined for rheumatological complaints. None of the patients after autologous TX displayed rheumatological manifestations; 8/33 patients after allogeneic TX developed bone necrosis and they had to be treated for several months with high daily doses of prednisolon (mean: 55 mg/day). In 18/33 patients an oligoarthropathy of large joints could be observed after a significant reduction of prednisolon dosage over a period of 5 months. In addition 15/18 of these patients later developed a chronic g-v-h-disease. The TX arthropathy may be induced by cortico-steroid therapy (resp. reduction), but most important, it is a clinical sign for an imminent chronic g-v-h-disease.