Zinaida Perić, MD, PhD, University Hospital Centre Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia, talks on how improvements in the understanding of chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) biology has led to the identification of new therapeutic targets. Dr Perić also discusses how refined diagnostic, staging and response criteria have enabled novel agents to enter clinical trials and have also led to the approval of novel drugs for steroid-refractory chronic GvHD (SR-cGvHD), namely ruxolitinib and belumosudil. Whilst ibrutinib was associated with significant toxicity and did therefore not enter clinical practice, ruxolitinib showed impressive results in the Phase III REACH3 trial (NCT03112603), with an overall response rate (ORR) of 49% in comparison to 25% for the best available therapy. Dr Perić suggests that in the future combining treatments could be a useful approach. This interview took place at the 4th Annual Meeting of the International Academy for Clinical Hematology (IACH), which took place virtually in 2021.
