VILLA GUARDIA, Italy, Feb. 27, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gentium S.p.A. (Nasdaq:GENT) (the "Company") announced today that results from a Phase III randomised controlled trial which evaluated Defibrotide for use in preventing hepatic veno-occlusive disease (VOD) in paediatric patients undergoing haemopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) were published in the medical journal, The Lancet (Vol 379). The results of Corbacioglu et al. show that Defibrotide leads to a 40% a reduction in the incidence of VOD thirty days after HSCT in patients receiving Defibrotide, compared with those who did not receive Defibrotide. Additionally, in allogeneic HSCT recipients (70% of study population), the incidence and severity of acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) were significantly lower in the Defibrotide arm. These finding supports the prophylactic use of Defibrotide in the HSCT transplant setting.
