Haematologica
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Comment Letter Comparative Study
The role of serum erythropoietin levels in diagnosis and classification of erythrocytosis/polycythemia.
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Letter Review Comparative Study
The efficacy of alemtuzumab for refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia in relation to cytogenetic abnormalities of p53.
We reviewed the efficacy of alemtuzumab in the treatment of 28 patients with refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in whom p53 status was known. Overall responses of 53.6% (complete responses 17.9%) were attained with no significant difference between patients with (50%) or without (55%) p53 deletion (p=0.214). We confirm the efficacy of alemtuzumab in refractory CLL irrespective of p53 deletions, and advocate its introduction earlier in disease course.
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Comparative Study
Circulating bcr-abl-specific CD8+ T cells in chronic myeloid leukemia patients and healthy subjects.
The fusion oncoprotein bcr-abl that characterizes chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a leukemia-specific antigen, which may be immunogenic in vivo. KQSSKALQR and GFKQSSKAL, peptide sequences spanning the b3a2 bcr-abl junction, have affinity for HLA-A3 and HLA-B8, respectively, and we have shown the presence of KQSSKALQR on the surface of CML cells. We analyzed the existence of bcr-abl-specific T cells in vivo and correlated their presence to contemporary disease burden. ⋯ Bcr-abl-specific T cells are detectable in CML patients, and might contribute to leukemic control. The occurrence of specific CD8+ T cells in some healthy donors might represent an immune response to occult BCR-ABL rearrangements.
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Several studies have been published on trends in childhood cancer incidence, with different patterns being reported. We present an analysis of cancer incidence trends in Piedmont (Italy) in 1967-2001 for the major categories of childhood malignant neoplasms. ⋯ Our data suggest an increasing incidence of childhood cancer in general, and specifically for leukemia, CNS tumors and neuroblastoma in Piedmont in 1967-2001. The observed trends are unlikely to be explained by random variation, changes in exhaustiveness or quality of data collection and registration.