title: Ciclosporin A: correlation of blood levels with acute graft-versus-host disease after bone marrow transplantation.
abstract: Thirty patients undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) for hematologic malignancies received ciclosporin A (CS-A) as prophylaxis of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). CS-A trough levels were determined in whole blood by radioimmunoassay (RIA); results were not used to adjust the CS-A dosage. Neither the dose of CS-A administered nor the CS-A concentration and fluctuation of blood levels during the first 15 days after BMT correlated with acute GVHD. Conversely in the 13 patients with acute GVHD, CS-A concentrations in the 10 days prior to the onset of the disease were increasingly lower with increasing severity of GVHD. Moreover, patients without GVHD had higher CS-A concentrations in a matched period of time. Upon withdrawal of CS-A treatment, 7 patients developed GVHD. There was no possibility to predict who would do so, but the analysis of CS-A disappearance profiles indicates that effective CS-A concentrations might be lower during long-term treatment than the concentrations required early after transplant. Despite these relationships, CS-A concentration is of little predictive value in the individual patient because of the considerable overlap among patients.
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003524:Cyclosporins / Q000097:blood* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005260:Female; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009994:Osmolar Concentration
chemical_list: D003524:Cyclosporins