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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Approves Ruxolitinib (Jakafi) for Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease
On September 22, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it has approved the use of ruxolitinib (Jakafi, Incyte Corp.) for chronic graft-versus-host disease (chronic GVHD) in adult and pediatric patients 12 years and older after the failure of at least one prior line of systemic therapy.
Graft versus host disease (GVHD) is a condition that might occur after an allogeneic transplant (donor bone marrow or stem cells). In GVHD, the donated bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells view the recipient’s body as foreign, and the donated cells/bone marrow attack the body. There are two types of GVHD: acute and chronic.
“The approval for ruxolitinib offers an important new option for patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease and hope for those impacted by it in the future,” said Meghan Gutierrez, Chief Executive Officer at the Lymphoma Research Foundation.
For more information on this FDA approval visit the FDA’s website.
Learn About: Stem Cell Transplantation
The ability to transplant stem cells allows physicians to use higher doses of chemotherapy to treat the cancer than the body would normally tolerate, increasing the probability of killing cancer cells. If the chemotherapy is followed by an infusion of stem cells, these new stem cells can replace the cells in the bone marrow that were destroyed during the chemotherapy treatment.
