Haematologica
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Phase-II study of the new aza-anthracenedione, BBR 2778, in patients with relapsed aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphomas.
BBR 2778 is a new aza-anthracenedione. Its activity against hematologic neoplasias in a mouse model is greater than that of doxorubicin or mitoxantrone. A phase-I study in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) showed that the drug has promising anti-tumor activity. Therefore, a phase-II study in patients with relapsed aggressive NHL was initiated. ⋯ These results indicate that 85 mg/m2 BBR 2778 in a q1w x 3 schedule is active in elderly and pretreated patients with relapsed aggressive NHL and was generally well tolerated. Thus, we recommend further clinical evaluation of this new compound in phase-III studies for the treatment of NHL.
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Comparative Study
Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia in patients with hematologic malignancies: a retrospective case-control study.
Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) continues to be a major problem related to both community and nosocomially acquired infection. Nevertheless few data are presently available in literature about this infection in patients with hematologic malignancies. ⋯ Our results seem to suggest that SAB in patients with hematologic malignancies is often a low inoculum infection associated with negligible morbidity and mortality rates, especially when adequate antistaphylococcal therapy is administered promptly.
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We report a chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patient in chronic phase (CP) who developed blast crisis (BC) under imatinib mesylate administered in a dose reduced and non-continuous fashion because of hematologic intolerance. The patient underwent nonmyeloablative stem-cell transplant from a matched unrelated donor, but failed to achieve full donor chimerism and antileukemic response resulting in persistence of advanced disease. Complete hematologic, cytogenetic and molecular responses were attained 5 weeks after readministration of regularly dosed imatinib and two-step nested RT-PCR confirmed molecular remission throughout a 6 month follow-up period. This is the first case demonstrating that imatinib mesylate is a highly effective and safe treatment option to induce durable molecular remission in patients with CML who remain in myeloid blast crisis after nonmyeloablative allogeneic stem-cell transplantation.