Gastroenterologic findings in graft versus host disease after allogenic bone marrow transplantation

We are reporting on a 25 years old patient with acute myelogenous leukemia, who developed an acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) 43 days after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT). The clinical symptoms included exanthema, diarrhea and abdominal cramps. The patient was treated with cyclosporine A and prednisone and the clinical symptoms disappeared subsequently. At day 225 post BMT the patient became icteric as the clinical manifestation of chronic GVHD. We describe in this case report endoscopical and histological findings during the episodes of acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease. The results obtained by sigmoidoscopy and liver biopsy confirmed the clinical diagnosis. The clinical work up of patients with acute or/and chronic GVHD should also include sigmoidoscopy in order to verify this transplantation related complication.