The potential use of thalidomide in the therapy of graft-versus-host disease--a review of clinical and laboratory information.

This article reviews the historical development of thalidomide as an immunosuppressive agent and the current state of knowledge of thalidomide as an anti-graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) agent. The evidence suggests that metabolites of thalidomide act at an early stage in the antigen recognition-activation pathway of graft T lymphocytes and down regulate normal lymphocyte responses. This effect seems to have beneficial effects in both acute and chronic GVHD, but the optimal mode of use in the clinical setting remains to be determined.