[Graft-versus-host disease-like syndrome following blood transfusion in a patient with duodenal ulcer]

Abstract

Graft-versus-host disease (GVDH)-like syndrome occurred in a 45 year-old man with duodenal ulcer who had received a transfusion of 8 units of packed red blood cells. Clinical features included high fever, macropapular rash, hepatic dysfunction, pancytopenia and, finally, fatal septicemia. A skin biopsy obtained from the chest revealed satellite cell necrosis of epidermal cells, mononuclear cell infiltrate of the upper dermis and epidermis, and vacuolar degeneration of basal cells. Autopsy bone marrow was aplastic. The occurrence of GVHD in immunologically normal individuals following blood transfusion is extremely rare.