Medical records of 63 consecutive patients (mean age 48.4 ± 15.14 years) who received PT-Cy were screened. Peripheral blood was the stem cell source for all patients. While 42 patients (66.6%) suffered from acute GVHD, 21 patients (33.3%) were affected by chronic GVHD during the observation period. Overall severity of cGVHD was NIH grade I (range 0–III). In acute GVHD, the skin (n = 35) was predominantly affected, whereas the eyes (n = 15) were the most frequent localisation of chronic GVHD. One patient had severe cGHVD of the lung. A total of 37 patients, who underwent at least two routine ophthalmological examinations after aHCT, were eligible for further analysis. Of these patients, 18 (48.6%) had 10/10 HLA matching, 7 (18.9%) had 9/10 matching and 12 (32.4%) had 5/10 matching.

Patients with only one or no ophthalmological exam were excluded, as the necessary ophthalmological data to contribute to the analysis were missing. Patient characteristics are shown in Table 1.

Fifteen of these 37 patients (40.54%) developed chronic oGVHD. Acute oGVHD was present in three patients (18.75%); two of these developed chronic oGVHD consecutively. The distribution regarding NIH and ICCGVHD grading is shown in Table 1.

Comparing NIH grading results with data from the previously published Cologne oGVHD cohort [3], differences were found. In the previously analysed cohort 15% of the patients had oGVHD NIH I, 22% NIH II and 63% NIH III.

Adverse environmental conditions during aHCT influence the development of oGVHD [3]. We divided patients into two groups depending on their transplant date. Of all patients transplanted in summer (n = 16), a total of 5 patients (31.2%) developed chronic oGVHD (ICCGVHD: mild-moderate: n = 3, severe: n = 2). Of all patients transplanted in winter (October–February, n = 21), a total of 10 patients (47.6%) developed chronic oGVHD (ICCGVHD: mild-moderate n = 7, severe n = 3).

Ophthalmological findings of 37 patients without (n = 22) and with (n = 15) chronic oGVHD were assessed. There are statistically significant differences between patients with and without chronic oGVHD for Schirmer’s test I (OD p = 0.018, OS p = 0.045), Oxford grade for corneal fluorescein staining (OD p = 0.002, OS p < 0.001) and OSDI® score (p = 0.002).