Clinical and economic burden associated with acute graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation in Germany

Results from a retrospective cohort study of patients who underwent allogeneic stem cell transplantation and either did or not experience acute GVHD (aGVHD) demonstrated that patients with aGVHD had significantly higher odds of mortality (odds ratio [OR] 2.2; 95% CI 1.2-4.0), compared with the no GVHD group, but that the odds of severe infection were similar between both groups (OR 1.7; 95% CI 0.9-3.3). Patients with aGVHD had significantly more overnight hospitalizations per patient-year (mean [SD]: 3.7 [3.0] and 2.7 [2.5], P = .029), and total direct costs were 1.6-fold higher compared with those without GVHD.