The following is a summary of “Diagnostic and prognostic role of elafin in skin acute graft versus host disease: a systematic review,” published in the December 2023 issue of Hematology by Bhattarai et al.

Skin bears the brunt of early a Graft versus host disease (GVHD) following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), prompting the search for predictive biomarkers like elafin.

Researchers started a retrospective study to assess the potential of elafin as a biomarker for diagnosing and predicting the severity of skin acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD).

They searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, and medRxiv for studies on elafin’s diagnostic or prognostic role in GVHD. The search utilized’ elafin,’ ‘graft versus host,’ and ‘GVHD’ with Boolean operators’ AND’ and ‘OR.’ Articles were exported to an Excel® sheet, and duplicates were removed. The systematic review adhered to PRISMA guidelines. After meeting inclusion criteria, selected studies had data extracted on study characteristics and biomarker details onto a predefined Excel table. The QUIPS tool assessed the quality of the included studies.

The results showed 547 studies, with 6 meeting the eligibility criteria for inclusion. The key finding is a noteworthy increase in elafin levels in skin aGVHD.

Investigators concluded that skin aGVHD diagnosis and prognosis benefitted from early (within 2 weeks) elafin assessment.

Source: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16078454.2023.2293497