Preconditioning Serum Levels of Endothelial Cell-Derived Molecules and the Risk of Posttransplant Complications in Patients Treated with Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation

Figure 2

Differences in the serum profile of soluble adhesion molecules derived from endothelial cells (endocan, E-selectin, and VCAM-1) are associated with the frequency of posttransplant acute GVHD. Serum levels of all three endothelium-derived soluble adhesion molecules were determined for 50 consecutive/unselected patients (only those patients where the levels of all three mediators were available) prior to pretransplant conditioning therapy. An unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis was performed and two major patient subsets were then identified, that is, the right 23 and the left 27 patients. The observation of acute GVHD is indicated in the right part of the figure; green squares indicate skin GVHD alone and red squares indicate that the patients had gastrointestinal or liver affection eventually in combination with skin GVHD. Early (i.e., within 4 weeks of posttransplant) nonrelapse death due to multiorgan failure (MOF) or early acute GVHD grade 4 with later death due to multiorgan failure is also indicated in the figure.