A Pediatric Case of Sclerodermatous Chronic Graft‐versus‐Host Disease

Abstract

We report a rare case of sclerodermatous chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in a 6-year-old boy that occurred after bone marrow transplantation for his aplastic anemia. The clinical manifestation and histopathologic findings were typical of scleroderma. Although various kinds of treatment have been tried for scleroderma, no established therapy exists. Furthermore, treating this disease is even more difficult in children. In the future, clarification of the pathogenesis of chronic GVHD and establishment of therapy will be necessary.

Chronic cutaneous graft‐versus‐host disease in children: A report of 14 patients from a tertiary care pediatric dermatology clinic

“…The rare variants of cc‐GVHD include overlap syndrome, erythema multiforme‐like cc‐GVHD, psoriasiform, eczema‐like cc‐GVHD, and exfoliative dermatitis‐like cc‐GVHD . Data in children are mostly restricted to isolated case reports and small series . The prevalence of various cutaneous manifestations in children with cGVHD is not known.…”

“…Awareness of such presentations is important for timely diagnosis and management. Data on cc‐GVHD in children is restricted to small series or isolated case reports . We report a single‐center experience of protean manifestations of cc‐GVHD observed over 9 years.…”

Koebnerizing sclerodermatous graft-versus-host disease caused by donor lymphocyte infusion and interferon-α

“…cGvHD may affect a number of different organs such as the skin, lungs, liver, gastrointestinal tract and eyes 2 . It is defined rather arbitrarily as occurring 100 days or more post‐transplant 3 . There are a number of clinical phenotypes including a sclerodermatous form, which is rare, with a prevalence of only 3·6% of at‐risk patients in some larger series ( n = 196) 4 .…”