Implications for the therapeutic role of Imatinib in systemic sclerosis: A single-arm meta-analysis

Abstract

Sclerotic chronic graft-versus-host disease (ScGVHD) or systemic sclerosis (SSc) is one of the most severe manifesta-tions of chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) since the involvement of major organs significantly affects the mortality and morbidity of SSc patients. Currently, there are no effective therapeutic approaches or standard "second-line" therapy for SSc. Imatinib, a clinical tyrosine kinase inhibitor used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia and gastrointestinal tumor, has shown potential therapeutic effects in treating ScGVHD or SSc. Due to the current limitations of clinical trials using Imatinib in the treatment of SSc, the results vary among different studies, and the applications of Imatinib in SSc is still in vagueness. Here we conducted a single-arm meta-analysis to quantitatively and systematically interpret the results of previous studies, as to evaluate the potential therapeutic effect of Imatinib in SSc. The pooled clinical response rate (CRR) showed that Imatinib had higher CRR in SSc patients with longer disease duration (CRR = 0.550) and lung involvement (CRR = 0.601) than those without (P < 0.001). Therefore, it was encouraging to conduct future clinical studies regarding Imatinib therapy in SSc patients, since the global response rate of Imatinib was higher than expected in specific subgroup patients.