Vulvovaginal Graft-versus-Host Disease: Diagnosis and Microbiome Evaluation

Description

Recent advances in technologies including high throughput metagenomic 16S rRNA gene sequencing have revealed a larger, more complex picture of the bacterial diversity in the genital tract and unique microbial communities not previously recognized among the known vaginal flora categories. Little is known about how the vaginal microbiome protects the female genital tract or other roles it may have, including interacting with the microbiota of other body sites and subsequent inflammatory responses. Alteration of vaginal flora may play a part in the pathogenesis of diseases by modulating immunity or increasing the growth of pathogenic strains. Recent research has been conducted regarding changes in the vaginal microbiome during various infectious and inflammatory states such as bacterial vaginosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, sexually transmitted infectious, and pregnancy. However, the vaginal microbiome during allogeneic HCT and development of genital GVHD has yet to be examined. Thus, the role of the vaginal microbiome in the development of genital GVHD is a critical area of study.