Table 1.

Publications identified by the PubMed search on physical symptoms and functions in patients with GvHD, with specific results on severe GvHD.

First Author, Year, Country	Study Design	Form of GvHD	Patient Population	Main Outcomes	Main Results on Severe GvHD
Im, 2016, USA [31]	Cross-sectional	cGvHD	263 study participants; 70.7% had severe cGvHD	Fatigue in patients with moderate to severe cGvHD	84% of participants endorsed fatigue in different forms, but no correlation was found between the prevalence of fatigue and NIH cGvHD severity.
Hamada, 2019, Japan [32]	Retrospective chart review	aGvHD	76 study participants; 15% had aGvHD grades III and IV	Effect of the severity of aGvHD on physical function	A decline in physical functions was shown for all participants who developed aGvHD, but participants with aGvHD grades III and IV showed worse recovery of physical functions compared to participants with milder forms.
Baird, 2013, USA [10]	Cross-sectional	cGvHD	189 study participants; 66% had severe cGvHD	Assessment of the validity of the NIH criteria as determinants in severely affected patients	Participants with more severe cGvHD showed worse outcomes in nearly all functional measures compared to milder forms of cGvHD.
Pidala, 2013, USA [35]	Prospective cohort	cGvHD	584 study participants; 39% had severe cGvHD	Assessment of physical functions in patients with cGvHD by HGS and 2MWT and its relation to PROs	A significant association of an impaired 2MWT with higher symptom burden (measured by LSS), greater functional disability and more severe cGvHD was shown.
Agh, 2019, Hungary [38]	Systematic Review	cGvHD	n.a.	Systematic overview of HRQoL and functional capacity of patients with cGvHD	More severe cGvHD was correlated with worse physical functions.
Mitchell, 2009, USA [39]	Cross-sectional	cGvHD	100 study participants; 50% had severe cGvHD	Assessment of determinants of functional performance in patients with cGvHD	cGvHD severity was no significant predictor of functional performance.

aGvHD: acute graft-versus-host disease; cGvHD: chronic graft-versus-host disease; HGS: hand grip strength; HRQoL: health-related quality of life; LSS: Lee symptom scale; 2MWT: 2-min walk test; n.a.: not applicable; NIH: National Institutes of Health; PROs: patient-reported outcomes.