EBMT 2025 | Veno-occlusive disease: risk factors and the importance of early diagnosis
In this video, Mohamad Mohty, MD, PhD, Saint-Antoine Hospital, Paris, France, provides insight into a session on veno-occlusive disease (VOD) at the EBMT 2025 meeting, highlighting that this complication can occur not only in patients undergoing stem cell transplantation (SCT) but also those treated with cellular or gene therapies. Prof. Mohty emphasizes the importance of early diagnosis, mentioning the clinical concept of probable VOD. This interview took place at the 51st Annual Meeting of the EBMT in Florence, Italy.
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Transcript
Veno-occlusive disease is really a terrible complication after stem cell transplantation, but we can see VOD after auto-transplantation and allo, but also outside transplantation. And it remains a matter of concern because there are probably new risk factors emerging. We can see, for instance, more and more of the older population receiving transplants, and age by itself and frailty can be a risk factor...
Veno-occlusive disease is really a terrible complication after stem cell transplantation, but we can see VOD after auto-transplantation and allo, but also outside transplantation. And it remains a matter of concern because there are probably new risk factors emerging. We can see, for instance, more and more of the older population receiving transplants, and age by itself and frailty can be a risk factor. People are using more and more treosulfan as part of the conditioning regimen, and the recent EBMT publication and collaboration could show that treosulfan is part of those modifiable risk factors for VOD. There are cases now described in the context of CAR T-cells, and more recently, we’ve seen some recommendations related to the risk of VOD in the context of gene therapy.
So during this EBMT 2025 annual meeting, we had a lovely session about VOD management, about VOD diagnosis, VOD risk factors. And again, I think it is a rapidly evolving field. It’s a dynamic field. And the conclusion from the different, I would say, available evidence is that early diagnosis is crucial in order to improve the outcome of the patient. Because when you are able to perform an early diagnosis, you’re able to have an early treatment, and obviously this will improve the outcome of the patient. And this is why the EBMT refined the criteria for VOD that were published in 2023 during the annual meeting in Glasgow that actually allowed to introduce the concept of probable VOD. And I think this probable VOD category is allowing to achieve an early diagnosis of VOD when you suspect this complication. And this has been now shown in an independent Japanese series. We do have similar results from Spain, but also similar validation from the Delphi France registry.
So you can see VOD remains a matter of concern, but I’m quite optimistic that more and more, when we are able to apply early diagnosis, when we are able to assess the risk, and there is a clear role for multidisciplinary teams and interventions, definitely the outcome of the patient is going to be improved. And of course, this is really good news.
This transcript is AI-generated. While we strive for accuracy, please verify this copy with the video.
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