Leukemia research
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Regular analgesic use and risk of multiple myeloma.
Analgesic use has been implicated in the chemoprevention of a number of solid tumors, but to date no previous research has focused on the role of analgesics in the etiology of multiple myeloma (MM). We conducted a hospital-based case-control study of 117 patients with primary, incident MM and 483 age and residence matched controls without benign or malignant neoplasms. All participants received medical services at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, and completed a comprehensive epidemiological questionnaire. ⋯ Further, marked increases in risk of MM were noted with both greater frequency (>7 tablets weekly; adjusted OR=4.36; 95% CI 1.70-11.2) and greater duration (>10 years; adjusted OR=3.26; 95% CI 1.52-7.02) of acetaminophen use. We observed no evidence of a chemoprotective effect of aspirin on MM risk, but observed significant risk elevations with various measures of acetaminophen use. Our results warrant further investigation in population-based case-control and cohort studies and should be interpreted with caution in light of the limited sample size and biases inherent in hospital-based studies.
-
Case Reports
Successful treatment of relapsed AML after allogeneic stem cell transplantation with azacitidine.
Therapeutic options for patients with relapse of MDS or high risk AML after allogeneic stem cell transplantation are limited. We here present the case of a 64-year-old female patient with MDS, who received peripheral blood stem cells from her HLA-identical brother after a non-myeloablative conditioning regimen. ⋯ The patient achieved a complete haematological response after two cycles and full donor chimerism after a single dose of donor lymphocytes. We postulate that azacitidine acts through a direct reduction of malignant cells and may in addition augment the immunologic effects of donor lymphocyte infusions.
-
Usefulness of JAK2V617F mutation in distinguishing idiopathic erythrocytosis from polycythemia vera.
Idiopathic erythrocytosis (IE) is a primary erythrocytosis not fulfilling the criteria for polycythemia vera (PV) diagnosis. In order to verify the relationship between IE and PV, we screened JAK2V617F mutation in a consecutive series of 11 IE and, for comparison, in 15 PV. ⋯ All 11 IE tested negative for JAK2V617F mutation, which, conversely, occurred in 11/15 (73.3%) PV. Our results demonstrate that JAK2V617F is absent in IE and may represent a useful molecular marker for distinguishing IE from PV.