TOPLINE:

A study found that chronic graft-vs-host disease (cGVHD) has a similar or greater impact on skin-specific quality of life (ssQOL) compared to dermatomyositis (DM) and cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE).

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 501 adults (mean age, 49.7 years; 82.2% women; 80% White and 17.8% Black) enrolled in disease-specific observational cohort studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, between 2014 and 2024.
• Of these, 84 patients had cGVHD, 332 had DM, and 85 and CLE with concurrent systemic LE.
• Researchers measured ssQOL using Skindex-29, a dermatology-specific patient-reported outcome measure evaluating impact on symptoms, emotions, and function, with higher scores indicating higher severity.
• Patients with cGVHD were older, more likely to be male, and were predominantly White compared to those in other groups.

TAKEAWAY:

• Patients with cGVHD demonstrated moderate impairment in total Skindex score (mean, 32.1), emotion subscale (mean, 36.6), and function subscale (mean, 26.0), with severe impairment in symptom subscale (mean, 32.6).
• Patients with cGVHD showed worse overall ssQOL than those with DM after adjusting for age, sex, and race (mean difference [MD] in total score, 10; P < .001). Similar trends were seen in emotional (MD, 12; P < .001), functional (MD, 12; P < .001) and symptom (MD, 6; P = .018) subscales. The differences in the overall and emotional scores were clinically meaningful.
• Compared with CLE, cGVHD symptom scores were less severe in (MD, -8; P = .019), but overall, ssQOL scores were similar in both conditions.

IN PRACTICE:

“We demonstrate that cGVHD generally has similar or greater ssQOL impact compared to DM and CLE, highlighting the need for similar focus on cutaneous disease in cGVHD,” the authors wrote. They noted that there are no FDA-approved treatments approved specifically for cutaneous cGVHD,” and that future studies “should identify factors that affect ssQOL severity and response in cGVHD, including disease duration and severity.”

SOURCE:

The study was led by Savannah Alvarado, MD, Department of Dermatology, University of Pennsylvania, and was published online on February 10 in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

LIMITATIONS:

The study was limited by incomplete data for chronic GVHD disease severity. Treatment effects were not evaluated because of heterogeneity.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute for Arthritis, Musculoskeletal, and Skin Diseases. The authors reported having no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.