eGVHD vs CARTOX

The “eGVHD App” is developed by the UZ Leuven (Belgium) in collaboration with the EBMT (European Bone Marrow Transplantation Society) Transplantation Complications Working Party and the National Institute of Health (Bethesda, USA). It is an electronic tool designed as an algorithm-driven application, to help clinicians apply the internationally recognized criteria for the assessment of graft versus host disease (GVHD), a pleiotropic disease affecting allogeneic stem cell transplantation recipients when their transplanted stem cells react against their own body. This app is not a medical tool aiming at replacing the diagnosis of a clinician, but a user-friendly educational tool. It helps health care professionals improve their ability to diagnose and score the severity of GVHD by showing the user differential information and it making an automatic summary of what has been filled in.

Cellular therapies can be associated with unique, acute toxicities which can be severe or even fatal if not identified early and treated appropriately. Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS), the most commonly observed toxicity can range in severity from low-grade constitutional symptoms to high-grade syndrome associated with life-threatening multi-organ disfunction. Neurotoxicity, originally termed CRES (CAR-Related Encephalopathy Syndrome) and now updated to ICANS (Immune effector Cell-Associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome) is the second most-common adverse even and can occur concurrently with CRS. A multi-disciplinary working group was formed to address safety issues for patients receiving cellular therapy which led to the development of new grading methods and treatment algorithms that have been incorporated into the CARTOX mobile app. The CARTOX mobile app assists with grading toxicities, managing toxicities and assists with recommendations regarding appropriate antimicrobial prophylaxis for patients who have received immune effector cell therapy. Users are more easily able to determine if the patient is having cytokine release syndrome or neurotoxicity and to grade those toxicities. Intended audience: Clinicians (physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, nurses) who treat/care for patients receiving immune effector cells.