The research team earlier hypothesized and demonstrated that tocilizumab could attenuate the incidence of acute GVHD (aGVHD) after myeloablative conditioning (MAC) and reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT), using matched sibling or unrelated donor. In this study, the research team hypothesizes that longer term interleukin 6 (IL-6) inhibition through treatment with tocilizumab by repeated dosing would mediate a beneficial effect not only on the risk of aGVHD, but also on chronic GVHD. This will be achieved by administering an additional dose of tocilizumab at Day +100 post-alloHCT, besides the pretransplant dose, as done in our previous clinical trial, thereby providing total prophylaxis against both acute and chronic GVHD.
This is a phase II open-label trial designed to evaluate the efficacy of tocilizumab in improving GVHD-free/relapse-free survival (GRFS) after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT) for hematologic malignancy.