Working
Groups
This Action will bring together Chronic GvHD (cGvHD) researchers across Europe for the first time, creating a network of cross-disciplinary experts in the field.
Working Group 4
NIH Consensus
Lead
Atillio Olivieri
Attilio Olivieri is an expert in stem cell transplantation fields and in techniques employed in the cell processing, purging and cryopreservation. He has been Chairman of the Italian group for Transplantation (GITMO) for GVHD management since 2015 and has been involved as a member of the NIH Board for the new Consensus Conference on cGVHD.
Atillio Olivieri
Country
Italy
Vice Lead
Drazen Pulanic
Dr Pulanic is a specialist of Internal Medicine and Subspecialist in Hematology in the department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Center Zagreb and Medical School University of Zagreb, Croatia.
Drazen Pulanic
Country
Croatia
dpulanic@yahoo.com
Overview
The NIH consensus criteria needs to be implemented uniformly if diagnosis and treatment of cGVHD is to be optimized. The aim of this Working Group will be to aid in both the understanding and implementation of the NIH Consensus via Training Schools and workshops.
Objective
Investigation of the implementation and use of the NIH-defined diagnostic criteria of cGvHD and NIH recommendations for response assessment in daily clinical routine care across Europe.
Task 1
To survey use of NIH-defined diagnostic criteria of cGvHD in daily clinical routine care within European countries.
Task 2
To develop an on-line toolbox of documents and Training Schools regarding the implementation of the NIH-defined diagnostic criteria on a European scale including in one Training School per year, and monthly teleconferences for case discussions on staging and severity scoring of cGvHD.
Task 3
To survey patient reported outcome measures used in daily clinical routine for assessment of cGvHD activity, co-morbidities and side-effects of immunosuppressive treatments within European countries; subgroup identification e.g. identified patterns of disease.
Task 4
To investigate patient care models of cGvHD throughout Europe.
Milestones
Report-Survey data on routine use of NIH-defined diagnostic criteria in Europe
Annual Training Schools on NIH-defined diagnostic criteria
Report -Survey data on routine use of NIH-recommended response assessment criteria in Europe
Report -Survey data on routine use of patient-reported outcome measures
Report -Overview on patient care models of cGvHD in Europe
Deliverables
On-line tool box for Training Schools of NIH-defined diagnostic criteria of cGvHD
Harmonized guidelines for response assessment in clinical routine
Consensus document on recommended patient care in cGvHD in Europe
Six STSMs across the Working Group
Get involved with this Working Group
If you wish to join this Working Group, please email admin.cost17138@ncl.ac.uk or one of the leads.
Other working groups
Biomarkers
This Working Group will assess the type and amount of biomarker information which is currently available in the literature and assess those which are worthy of further validation and study.
Socioeconomics/Quality of life
CGvHD is a long term complex disease which has several co-morbidities and as such impacts on the quality of life of patients. By studying the societal impact of the disease via documented quality of life assessments, including reduced working days due to hospital stays, EUROGRAFT will allow an improved assessment of the burden on society of cGvHD at both the individual and European level.
Immunotherapy
Patients with cGvHD (30-50%) can become refractory to standard therapy, new treatment options and the assessment of current novel therapies are urgently needed to improve the long term outcome and quality of life. In this Working Group the Action will bring together experts in cGVHD and clinical trial development, especially in the realm of cellular therapies with the aim of developing concepts for new approaches including personalized approaches to therapy.
