Background
Patients with hematological malignancies (HM) have a high risk of severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), also in the Omicron period.
Material and methods
Retrospective single‐center ...study including HM patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV2) infection from January 2022 to March 2023. Study outcomes were respiratory failure (RF), mechanical ventilation (MV), and COVID‐related mortality, comparing patients according to SARS‐CoV2 serology.
Results
Note that, 112 patients were included: 39% had negative SARS‐CoV2 serology. Seronegative were older (71.5 vs. 65.0 years, p = 0.04), had more often a lymphoid neoplasm (88.6% vs. 69.1%, p = 0.02), underwent anti‐CD20 therapy (50.0% vs. 30.9% p = 0.04) and had more frequently a severe disease (23.0% vs. 3.0%, p = 0.02) than seropositive.
Kaplan‐Meier showed a higher risk for seronegative patients for RF (p = 0.014), MV (p = 0.044), and COVID‐related mortality (p = 0.021). Negative SARS‐CoV2 serostatus resulted in a risk factor for RF (hazards ratio HR 2.19, 95% confidence interval CI 1.03–4.67, p = 0.04), MV (HR 3.37, 95% CI 1.06–10.68, p = 0.04), and COVID‐related mortality (HR 4.26, 95% CI 1.09–16.71, p = 0.04).
Conclusions
: HM patients with negative SARS‐CoV2 serology, despite vaccinations and previous infections, have worse clinical outcomes compared to seropositive patients in the Omicron era. The use of serology for SARS‐CoV2 diagnosis could be an easy tool to identify patients prone to developing complications.
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) carrying inv(16)/t(16;16), resulting in fusion transcript CBFB-MYH11, belongs to the favorable-risk category. However, even if most patients obtain morphological complete ...remission after induction, approximately 30% of cases eventually relapse. While well-established clinical features and concomitant cytogenetic/molecular lesions have been recognized to be relevant to predict prognosis at disease onset, the independent prognostic impact of measurable residual disease (MRD) monitoring by quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), mainly in predicting relapse, actually supersedes other prognostic factors. Although the ELN Working Party recently indicated that patients affected with CBFB-MYH11 AML should have MRD assessment at informative clinical timepoints, at least after two cycles of intensive chemotherapy and after the end of treatment, several controversies could be raised, especially on the frequency of subsequent serial monitoring, the most significant MRD thresholds (most commonly 0.1%) and on the best source to be analyzed, namely, bone marrow or peripheral blood samples. Moreover, persisting low-level MRD positivity at the end of treatment is relatively common and not predictive of relapse, provided that transcript levels remain stably below specific thresholds. Rising MRD levels suggestive of molecular relapse/progression should thus be confirmed in subsequent samples. Further prospective studies would be required to optimize post-remission monitoring and to define effective MRD-based therapeutic strategies.
BACKGROUNDMonoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) is an asymptomatic premalignant plasma cell disorder. Prevalence and clinical outcomes of MGUS in kidney transplant (KT) recipients ...have been previously reported in few studies with conflicting results.
METHODSWe conducted a retrospective study in a population of 548 KT recipients transplanted between 1998 and 2015.
RESULTSThirty-nine (8.1%) subjects developed MGUS after KT. At diagnosis of MGUS, the average age was 52 ± 9.2 years, and 23% of the patients were younger than 50 years. Occurrence of MGUS was not influenced by age and sex. After a mean follow-up of 7.8 years, only 1 (2.5%) patient progressed to multiple myeloma. We found no differences in the incidence of solid and hematological malignancies, serious infections, graft failure, and mortality between KT patients with MGUS and a matched cohort of KT recipients without MGUS. The MGUS group had a significantly higher prevalence of monoclonal B cell lymphocytosis, premalignant condition poorly described in KT recipients. Prior history of glomerulonephritis or interstitial nephritis, as cause of renal failure, represented the only predictive factor for MGUS development.
CONCLUSIONSMGUS is a premalignant disorder frequently encountered in KT recipients. We found no differences in clinical outcomes between MGUS patients and KT controls.
Purpose
People with hematologic malignancies have a significantly higher risk of developing severe and protracted forms of SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to immunocompetent patients, regardless of ...vaccination status.
Results
We describe two cases of prolonged SARS-CoV-2 infection with multiple relapses of COVID-19 pneumonia in patients with follicular lymphoma treated with bendamustine and obinutuzumab or rituximab. The aim is to highlight the complexity of SARS-CoV-2 infection in this fragile group of patients and the necessity of evidence-based strategies to treat them properly.
Conclusions
Patients with hematological malignancies treated with bendamustine and anti-CD20 antibodies had a significant risk of prolonged and relapsing course of COVID-19. Specific preventive and therapeutic strategies should be developed for this group of patients.
Human cytomegalovirus (CMV) represents the most common viral infection after hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT), mainly occurring as reactivation from latency in seropositive patients, with a ...different prevalence based on the extent and timing of seroconversion in a specific population. Here, we retrospectively analyzed a cohort of patients who underwent HSCT at our Institution between 2013 and 2018, all of whom were prophylactically treated with CMV‐IG (Megalotect Biotest®), to define the incidence and clinical outcomes of CMV reactivation and clinically significant infection. CMV infection occurred in 69% of our patient series, mainly resulting from reactivation, and CMV clinically significant infection (CS‐CMVi) occurred in 48% of prophylactically treated patients. CMV infection and CS‐CMVi impacted neither on relapse incidence nor on overall survival nor on relapse‐free survival. Moreover, a very low incidence of CMV end‐organ disease was documented. CMV‐IG used alone as prophylactic therapy after HSCT does not effectively prevent CMV reactivation.
Highlights
Prophylactic Cytomegalovirus‐specific immunoglobulins alone do not significantly decrease the risk of reactivation after hematopoietic stem cell transplant
Nucleophosmin(NPM1)-mutated protein, a leukemia-specific antigen, represents an ideal target for AML immunotherapy. We investigated the dynamics of NPM1-mutated-specific T cells on PB and BM samples, ...collected from 31 adult
-mutated AML patients throughout the disease course, and stimulated with mixtures of 18 short and long peptides (9-18mers), deriving from the complete C-terminal of the NPM1-mutated protein. Two 9-mer peptides, namely LAVEEVSLR and AVEEVSLRK (13.9-14.9), were identified as the most immunogenic epitopes. IFNγ-producing NPM1-mutated-specific T cells were observed by ELISPOT assay after stimulation with peptides 13.9-14.9 in 43/85 (50.6%) PB and 34/80 (42.5%) BM samples. An inverse correlation between MRD kinetics and anti-leukemic specific T cells was observed. Cytokine Secretion Assays allowed to predominantly and respectively identify Effector Memory and Central Memory T cells among IFNγ-producing and IL2-producing T cells. Moreover, NPM1-mutated-specific CTLs against primary leukemic blasts or PHA-blasts pulsed with different peptide pools could be expanded
from
-mutated AML patients or primed in healthy donors. We describe the spontaneous appearance and persistence of
-mutated-specific T cells, which may contribute to the maintenance of long-lasting remissions. Future studies are warranted to investigate the potential role of both autologous and allogeneic adoptive immunotherapy in
-mutated AML patients.
Recommendations and guidelines for management of SARS-COV-2 infection in hematologic patients were developed in the very difficult context of dealing with novel viral variants from one pandemic wave ...to another, with different susceptibility to available drugs and vaccines. Moreover, the largest SARS-COV-2 case series in patients treated for hematologic malignancies, including stem cell transplant recipients, was published before the Omicron surge, and refers mainly to Alpha and Delta viral variants. These infections had very high mortality, in a period when antivirals and monoclonal antibodies were mostly unavailable. Here, we report for the first time a SARS-COV-2 Omicron variant outbreak inside a Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Unit, describing the characteristics, clinical course, and infection outcomes shortly before and shortly after myeloablative transplantation. We detail how infections were treated off-label and managed inside the BMT ward, to guarantee the best possible outcomes while avoiding risks for non-infected inpatients. The positive outcomes observed suggest that it may not be absolutely necessary to obtain SARS-CoV-2 PCR negativity before BMT in hematologic patients after treated infection, in cases with long-term PCR positivity and high-risk hematologic disease.
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