Simple diagnosis of graft-versus-host disease

Among patients undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, we previously detected an increase of CD8+S6F1+ and CD8+CD57- cells with the onset of acute graft-versus-host disease.

This study was an attempt to develop a simple laboratory test for graft-versus-host disease.

We analyzed the percentage of the two lymphocyte subsets in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of healthy volunteers, patients with posttransfusion graft-versus-host disease, and recipients of allogeneic bone marrow transplants.

Two patients with posttransfusion graft-versus-host disease showed a high percentage of both subsets. When the graft-versus-host disease pattern was defined as 45% or more CD8+S6F1+ cells and 35% or more CD8+CD57- cells, it was found in none of 17 recipients without acute graft-versus-host disease, 9 of 16 recipients with grade I disease, and 8 of 9 recipients with grade II or worse disease had this pattern.

Our test may be useful for the laboratory diagnosis of acute graft-versus-host disease.