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In this trial, 700 patients with myeloma were randomly assigned to receive RVD therapy (lenalidomide, bortezomib, and dexamethasone) with or without autologous stem-cell transplantation. Patients who underwent transplantation had significantly longer progression-free survival. For the past 20 years, high-dose chemotherapy plus autologous stem-cell transplantation has been the standard treatment for newly diagnosed multiple myeloma in adults up to 65 years of age. 1 – 3 However, this treatment requires hospitalization and can be associated with substantial toxic effects. Over the past decade, immunomodulatory drugs 4 – 14 and proteasome inhibitors 15 – 17 have been shown to have substantial activity in patients with multiple myeloma. The use of combination therapy with immunomodulatory drugs, proteasome inhibitors, and dexamethasone has yielded increased rates of complete response and improved outcomes, both among patients who are eligible for transplantation and among those who . . .

Lenalidomide maintenance after stem-cell transplantation significantly prolonged progression-free and event-free survival in patients with multiple myeloma. At 4 years, overall survival was similar in the lenalidomide-treated and placebo-treated groups. During the past decade, high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem-cell transplantation has become the standard treatment for newly diagnosed myeloma in patients younger than 65 years of age. However, the median duration of response after this procedure does not exceed 3 years, and few patients remain free of the disease for more than 10 years. 1 – 4 Relapses are due to the failure of high-dose chemotherapy to eradicate all myeloma cells. Maintenance treatments have been proposed to control the proliferation of residual malignant cells after transplantation. For many years, interferon with or without glucocorticoids was used, 1 , 2 , 5 but this approach was . . .

We propose a unique method for cell sorting, \"Ephesia,\" using columns of biofunctionalized superparamagnetic beads self-assembled in a microfluidic channel onto an array of magnetic traps prepared by microcontact printing. It combines the advantages of microfluidic cell sorting, notably the application of a well controlled, flow-activated interaction between cells and beads, and those of immunomagnetic sorting, notably the use of batch-prepared, well characterized antibody-bearing beads. On cell lines mixtures, we demonstrated a capture yield better than 94%, and the possibility to cultivate in situ the captured cells. A second series of experiments involved clinical samples—blood, pleural effusion, and fine needle aspirates—issued from healthy donors and patients with B-cell hematological malignant tumors (leukemia and lymphoma). The immunophenotype and morphology of B-lymphocytes were analyzed directly in the microfluidic chamber, and compared with conventional flow cytometry and visual cytology data, in a blind test. Immunophenotyping results using Ephesia were fully consistent with those obtained by flow cytometry. We obtained in situ high resolution confocal three-dimensional images of the cell nuclei, showing intranuclear details consistent with conventional cytological staining. Ephesia thus provides a powerful approach to cell capture and typing allowing fully automated high resolution and quantitative immunophenotyping and morphological analysis. It requires at least 10 times smaller sample volume and cell numbers than cytometry, potentially increasing the range of indications and the success rate of microbiopsy-based diagnosis, and reducing analysis time and cost.

In multiple myeloma, combination chemotherapy with melphalan plus prednisone is still regarded as the standard of care in elderly patients. We assessed whether the addition of thalidomide to this combination, or reduced-intensity stem cell transplantation, would improve survival. Between May 22, 2000, and Aug 8, 2005, 447 previously untreated patients with multiple myeloma, who were aged between 65 and 75 years, were randomly assigned to receive either melphalan and prednisone (MP; n=196), melphalan and prednisone plus thalidomide (MPT; n=125), or reduced-intensity stem cell transplantation using melphalan 100 mg/m 2 (MEL100; n=126). The primary endpoint was overall survival. Analysis was by intention to treat. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00367185. After a median follow-up of 51·5 months (IQR 34·4–63·2), median overall survival times were 33·2 months (13·8–54·8) for MP, 51·6 months (26·6–not reached) for MPT, and 38·3 months (13·0–61·6) for MEL100. The MPT regimen was associated with a significantly better overall survival than was the MP regimen (hazard ratio 0·59, 95% CI 0·46–0·81, p=0·0006) or MEL100 regimen (0·69, 0·49–0·96, p=0·027). No difference was seen for MEL100 versus MP (0·86, 0·65–1·15, p=0·32). The results of our trial provide strong evidence to indicate that the use of thalidomide in combination with melphalan and prednisone should, at present, be the reference treatment for previously untreated elderly patients with multiple myeloma.

The combination of pomalidomide and low-dose dexamethasone (Pom-Dex) has proved effective and safe in patients with end-stage relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM), otherwise characterized by a very poor outcome. MM remains an incurable disease with unavoidable relapses, and the outcome after pomalidomide is still dismal. However, some patients demonstrate prolonged survival even beyond pomalidomide therapy.We sought to analyze the treatment of RRMM patients following Pom-Dex therapy and the response and survival after this next treatment line.We studied 134 patients treated with Pom-Dex until progression across two IFM studies. Seventy percent of these patients received further therapy after Pom-Dex. Among the treated patients, one third responded and one third maintained stable disease. The median OS for treated patients was 12 months (6.5;17), with 22 and 12.5% of patients surviving beyond 2 and 3 years, respectively. The factors associated with a better outcome were exposure to a triplet-based regimen containing a novel agent, response to therapy, absence of adverse cytogenetic, and a longer time from diagnosis to post pomalidomide therapy.This study suggests that patients relapsing after Pom-Dex therapy can still benefit from a further line of treatment. A subset of these treated patients even displayed a prolonged OS, while the prognosis remained very poor without treatment. An active approach could therefore be recommended even in this adverse situation, however guided by the patients’ prognosis factors.

Background Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a mature B-cell neoplasm characterized by the expansion of CD5-positive lymphocytes in peripheral blood. While CLL is the most common type of leukemia in Western populations, the disease is rare in Africans. Hence, clinical and laboratory data and studies of CLL in Sub Saharan populations have been limited. The aims of this study were to analyze the characteristics of senegalese patients with CLL at the time of the diagnosis and to identify the correlation between clinical characteristics (Binet stage) with age, gender, laboratory parameters and chromosomal abnormalities. Methods In this study, we investigated the clinical and laboratory characteristics of CLL in Senegal. A total of 40 patients who had been diagnosed with CLL during the period from July 2011 to April 2015 in Senegal were evaluated. Cytology and immunophenotype were performed in all patients to confirm the diagnosis. The prognosis factors such as Binet staging, CD38 and cytogenetic abnormalities were studied. The statistical analysis was performed using STATA version 13 (Stata college station Texas). Each patient signed a free and informed consent form before participating in the study. Results The mean age was 61 years ranged from 48 to 85. There were 31 males and only 9 females (sex ratio M : F = 3,44). At diagnosic, 82.5 % of the patients were classified as having advanced Binet stages B or C. The prognosis marker CD38 was positive in 28 patients. Cytogenetic abnormalities studied by FISH were performed in 25 patients, among them, 68 % (17 cases) had at least one cytogenetic abnormality and 28 % had 2 simultaneous cytogenetic abnormalities. Conclusion Africans may present with CLL at a younger age and our data suggest that CLL in Senegal may be more aggressive than in Western populations.

Bone disease is a common feature of multiple myeloma (MM). The goal of this study was to assess the prognostic significance of urinary markers of bone metabolism in MM. Urinary levels of total pyridinoline (T-Pyd), deoxypyridinoline (T-Dpd), crosslinked N-telopeptide (Ntx), C-telopeptide (Ctx) of type I collagen and immunologic free deoxypyridinoline (f-Dpd) were assessed in 82 consecutive, previously untreated MM patients (aged 65-75 years) diagnosed between June 1995 and December 1998. A correlation between disease stage according to the Durie-Salmon classification and T-Pyd (p=0.034) and T-Dpd (p=0.007) was observed, while T-Pyd (p=0.015) and to a lesser extent f-Dpd (p=0.081) were correlated to bone involvement measured by plain X-ray. None were correlated to M-component or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In univariate analysis high T-Pyd (p=0.007), T-Dpd (p=0.027), f-Dpd (p<0.001), and Ctx (p=0.011) were associated with shorter overall survival, whereas only f-Dpd (p=0.0025) was associated with a shorter disease-free survival. In multivariate analysis, C-reactive protein and f-Dpd were independent prognostic factors for overall survival. This retrospective analysis defined new independent prognostic indicators of survival in patients with newly diagnosed myeloma. Indeed, urinary markers of bone resorption can easily be measured at diagnosis and have independent prognostic significance to refine the prognosis of MM patients.

The efficacy of anti-tumor IgG reflects the balance between opposing signals mediated by activating and inhibitory Fcγ receptors (FcγRs) expressed by effector cells. Here, we show that human malignant melanoma cells express the inhibitory low-affinity Fcγ receptor FcγRIIB1 in 40% of tested metastases. When melanoma cells were grafted in nude mice, a profound inhibition of FcγRIIB1 tumor growth that required the intracytoplasmic region of the receptor was observed. IgG immune complexes (ICs) may be required for this inhibition, since sera from nude mice bearing tumors contained IgG that decreased the proliferation of FcγRIIB1-positive cells in vitro, and tumor development of FcγRIIB1-positive melanoma lines was not inhibited in antibody-defective severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice. Passive immunization of SCID mice with anti–ganglioside GD2 antibody resulted in significant inhibition of growth of FcγRIIB1-positive tumors in an intracytoplasmic-dependent manner. Altogether, these data suggest that human melanoma cells express biologically active inhibitory FcγRIIB1, which regulates their development upon direct interaction with anti-tumor antibodies. Therefore, FcγR expression on human tumors may be one component of the efficacy of antibody-mediated therapies, and FcγR-positive tumors could be the most sensitive candidates for such treatments.