Acute Flare-up of Conjunctival Graft-versus-host Disease with Eosinophil Infiltration in a Patient with Chronic Graft-versus-host Disease

Abstract

Chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGvHD) is a disabling alloimmune disease. Acute flare-ups of alloimmune reactions can occur even at the chronic clinical stage necessitating modulation of immunosuppression therapy. We studied conjunctival lesions of a patient with an acute flare-up in cGvHD. Along with severe GvHD lesions, biopsies showed eosinophils with pathological signs of activation. Since eosinophil recruitment and activation is observed in flare-ups of patients with autoimmune or inflammatory bowel diseases, we suggest that activated eosinophils in target organs may be a marker of evolutive lesions in alloimmune reactions as in other kinds of inflammatory diseases.

• Graft-versus-host Disease
• Conjunctivitis
• Eosinophil
• Immunosuppression