Pretransplant chemotherapy reduces inflammatory cytokine production and acute graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation

Background Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) is known to be a critical effector molecule in the pathogenesis of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), and elevated levels during bone marrow transplantation (BMT) conditioning are associated with more severe GVHD;, Many patients receive chemotherapy prior to BMT, but its effect on subsequent toxicities is controversial