Methylprednisolone With or Without Daclizumab in Treating Patients With Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease

GVHD occurs when the donor's immune system recognizes a patient's body as foreign and reacts against it. GVHD may result in skin rashes and blistering, liver inflammation and gastrointestinal problems including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding. Mild GVHD may be treated with topical medications applied to the skin. More severe GVHD requires medications given intravenously (by vein) or taken by mouth. Steroids are usually given first to treat GVHD but only 40% of people respond to this alone. OBJECTIVES: * Compare response to treatment in patients with acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) treated with methylprednisolone with or without daclizumab. * Compare differences in total methylprednisolone dose and complications in patients treated with these regimens. * Compare mortality, days of antibiotics and antifungal therapy, and required hospital days within the first 100 days for patients treated with these regimens. * Compare overall survival and incidence of chronic GVHD at 1 year in patients treated with these regimens. OUTLINE: This is a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, multicenter study. Patients are stratified according to prior graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis (immunosuppressive therapy vs T-cell depletion), GVHD organ manifestation (skin only vs other), donor type (6/6 matched sibling vs other), and participating center. Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms. * Arm I: Patients receive methylprednisolone or equivalent corticosteroid IV or orally and daclizumab IV over 15 minutes on days 0, 3, 7, 14, and then weekly as indicated until day 100. * Arm II: Patients receive methylprednisolone or equivalent corticosteroid as in arm I and placebo. Patients are followed at 1 year and then annually thereafter.