Nowadays a donor can be found for virtually all patients in need of an allogeneic stem cell transplantation, and the decision whether to use a matched or mismatched unrelated donor, an unrelated ...donor for umbilical cord blood transplantation (UCBT), or a haploidentical donor depends not only on the availability of the donor but also on patient-, disease-, and center-related factors. This paper summarizes the recent criteria in the selection of cord blood unit, including the cell dose requirement and the HLA typing for the optimal donor choice. The main strategies to optimize the results of UCBT, the conditioning regimens, and the use of antithymocyte globulin and the other platforms of graft-versus-host disease prophylaxis are discussed. The paper describes the results of UCBT in children and adults with malignant and nonmalignant diseases and the comparative analysis with other donor type and stem cell sources. Emerging strategies, focusing on the different platforms of ex vivo expansion and the new applications using cord blood stem cell, are also examined.
We suggest the use of MicroCLOTS (microvascular COVID-19 lung vessels obstructive thromboinflammatory syndrome) as a new name for severe pulmonary coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We hypothesise ...that, in predisposed individuals, alveolar viral damage is followed by an inflammatory reaction and by microvascular pulmonary thrombosis. This progressive endothelial thromboinflammatory syndrome may also involve the microvascular bed of the brain and other vital organs, leading to multiple organ failure and death. Future steps in the understanding of the disease and in the identification of treatments may benefit from this definition and hypothesised sequence of events.
The use of anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) has represented the standard of care in graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis in patients undergoing a mismatched unrelated donor (MMUD) transplant. ...The safety and feasibility of posttransplant cyclophosphamide (PTCY) in this setting have been reported recently, but no study has compared the outcomes of PTCY vs ATG in 9/10 MMUD transplants. Using the registry data of the Acute Leukemia Working Party of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, we performed a matched-pair analysis comparing those 2 strategies in a 9/10 MMUD setting. Ninety-three patients receiving PTCY were matched with 179 patients receiving ATG. A significantly lower incidence of severe acute GVHD was observed with PTCY compared with ATG. Recipients of the former also showed higher leukemia-free survival and GVHD/relapse-free survival (GRFS). When performing a subgroup analysis including patients receiving peripheral blood stem cells, being in complete remission, or receiving the same associated immunosuppressive agents, superiority of PTCY over ATG was confirmed. Similar to the haploidentical setting, use of PTCY is an effective anti-GVHD prophylaxis in the 9/10 MMUD transplant. Use of PTCY may also provide better outcomes in long-term disease control. These results need confirmation in large prospective randomized trials.
•PTCY results in a lower incidence of severe acute GVHD compared with ATG in patients transplanted from 9/10 MMUD for acute myeloid leukemia.•PTCY results in better survival compared with ATG in patients transplanted from 9/10 MMUD for acute myeloid leukemia.
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Growing clinical evidence has implicated complement as a pivotal driver of COVID-19 immunopathology. Deregulated complement activation may fuel cytokine-driven hyper-inflammation, thrombotic ...microangiopathy and NET-driven immunothrombosis, thereby leading to multi-organ failure. Complement therapeutics have gained traction as candidate drugs for countering the detrimental consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Whether blockade of terminal complement effectors (C5, C5a, or C5aR1) may elicit similar outcomes to upstream intervention at the level of C3 remains debated. Here we compare the efficacy of the C5-targeting monoclonal antibody eculizumab with that of the compstatin-based C3-targeted drug candidate AMY-101 in small independent cohorts of severe COVID-19 patients. Our exploratory study indicates that therapeutic complement inhibition abrogates COVID-19 hyper-inflammation. Both C3 and C5 inhibitors elicit a robust anti-inflammatory response, reflected by a steep decline in C-reactive protein and IL-6 levels, marked lung function improvement, and resolution of SARS-CoV-2-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). C3 inhibition afforded broader therapeutic control in COVID-19 patients by attenuating both C3a and sC5b-9 generation and preventing FB consumption. This broader inhibitory profile was associated with a more robust decline of neutrophil counts, attenuated neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) release, faster serum LDH decline, and more prominent lymphocyte recovery. These early clinical results offer important insights into the differential mechanistic basis and underlying biology of C3 and C5 inhibition in COVID-19 and point to a broader pathogenic involvement of C3-mediated pathways in thromboinflammation. They also support the evaluation of these complement-targeting agents as COVID-19 therapeutics in large prospective trials.
•Deregulated complement activation underpins the pathophysiology of severe COVID-19•Complement inhibition abrogates COVID-19 hyper-inflammation leading to resolution of SARS-CoV-2-associated ARDS•Divergent profiles of C3 vs C5 inhibition point to a broader impact of C3 inhibition on NET-driven thromboinflammation
Objective: Describe characteristics, daily care and outcomes of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
Design: Case series of 73 patients.
...Setting: Large tertiary hospital in Milan.
Participants: Mechanically ventilated patients with confirmed COVID-19 admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) between 20 February and 2 April 2020.
Main outcome measures: Demographic and daily clinical data were collected to identify predictors of early mortality.
Results: Of the 73 patients included in the study, most were male (83.6%), the median age was 61 years (interquartile range IQR, 54-69 years), and hypertension affected 52.9% of patients. Lymphocytopenia (median, 0.77 103 per mm3; IQR, 0.58-1.00 103 per mm3), hyperinflammation with C-reactive protein (median, 184.5 mg/dL; IQR, 108.2-269.1 mg/dL) and pro-coagulant status with D-dimer (median, 10.1 mg/m; IQR, 5.0-23.8 mg/m) were present. Median tidal volume was 6.7 mL/kg (IQR, 6.0-7.5 mL/kg), and median positive end-expiratory pressure was 12 cmH2O (IQR, 10-14 cmH2O). In the first 3 days, prone positioning (12-16 h) was used in 63.8% of patients and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in five patients (6.8%). After a median followup of 19.0 days (IQR, 15.0-27.0 days), 17 patients (23.3%) had died, 23 (31.5%) had been discharged from the ICU, and 33 (45.2%) were receiving invasive mechanical ventilation in the ICU. Older age (odds ratio OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.04-1.22; P = 0.004) and hypertension (OR, 6.15; 95% CI, 1.75-29.11; P = 0.009) were associated with mortality, while early improvement in arterial partial pressure of oxygen (Pao2) to fraction of inspired oxygen (Fio2) ratio was associated with being discharged alive from the ICU (P = 0.002 for interaction).
Conclusions: Despite multiple advanced critical care interventions, COVID-19 ARDS was associated with prolonged ventilation and high short term mortality. Older age and pre-admission hypertension were key mortality risk factors.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04318366
Fecal microbiota transplantation is an effective treatment in recurrent
infection. Promising results to eradicate multidrug-resistant bacteria have also been reported with this procedure, but there ...are safety concerns in immunocompromised patients. We report results in ten adult patients colonized with multidrug-resistant bacteria, undergoing fecal microbiota transplantation before (n=4) or after (n=6) allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for hematologic malignancies. were obtained from healthy related or unrelated donors. Fecal material was delivered either by enema or
nasogastric tube. Patients were colonized or had infections from either carbapenemase-producing bacteria (n=8) or vancomycin-resistant enterococci (n=2). Median age at fecal microbiota transplantation was 48 (range, 16-64) years. Three patients needed a second transplant from the same donor due to initial failure of the procedure. With a median follow up of 13 (range, 4-40) months, decolonization was achieved in seven of ten patients. In all patients, fecal micro-biota transplantation was safe: one patient presented with constipation during the first five days after FMT and two patients had grade I diarrhea. One case of gut grade III acute graft-
-host disease occurred after fecal microbiota transplantation. In patients carrying or infected by multidrug-resistant bacteria, fecal microbiota transplantation is an effective and safe decolonization strategy, even in those with hematologic malignancies undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
To address limitations of the currently used reduced-intensity/myeloablative conditioning (RIC/MAC) classification scheme we aimed to develop a tool that can capture more standardized the ...conditioning intensity of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). We assigned intensity weight scores for frequently used conditioning regimen components and used their sum to generate the transplant conditioning intensity (TCI) score. We retrospectively tested the impact of TCI on 8255 adult (45-65 years) acute myeloid leukemia patients who underwent HCT in first complete remission. A Cox model for early nonrelapse mortality (NRM) yielded a 3-group TCI risk scheme (low, intermediate, high) with respective TCI scores of 1-2, 2.5-3.5 and 4-6. On multivariate modeling, TCI grouping was highly and better predictive for early (day 100 and 180) NRM, 2-year NRM and relapse (REL) as compared with the RIC/MAC classification. Validation was done on 200 bootstrap samples. Moreover, TCI scoring enabled the identification of a distinct subgroup of RIC and MAC conditioning regimens with an intermediate TCI 2.5-3.5 score that had identical outcomes and which are frequently referred as "reduced toxicity conditioning". TCI scheme provides an improvement of the RIC/MAC classification. We propose TCI as a new tool to define and measure the conditioning regimen intensity.
Refractory or relapsed acute myeloid leukemia (R/R-AML) has poor prognosis. Allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) may provide cure in this scenario. We compared outcomes of HSCT ...from HLA-identical (HLA-id, n = 1654) sibling or haploidentical (Haplo, n = 389) donors in patients with R/R-AML, performed during the period 2007-2015. The Haplo group included patients receiving an unmanipulated graft (post-transplant cyclophosphamide, n = 278; in vivo T-cell depletion, n = 95; or both, n = 16). Median age at HSCT was 52 (range 18-74) years. Median follow-up was 16 and 22 months for HLA-id sibling and Haplo recipients, respectively (p = 0.11). Compared to MSD, Haplo HSCT were performed more recently (2013 vs 2011, p < 0.01), at longer interval from diagnosis (7 vs 5 months, p < 0.01), more frequently using bone marrow as stem cell source (47% vs 8%, p < 0.01) and with a reduced intensity conditioning regimen (50% vs 43%, p = 0.03). Engraftment was higher (93% vs 83%, p < 0.01) in HLA-id sibling. In multivariate analysis, Haplo HSCT was associated with lower GVHD/relapse-free survival, inferior LFS and OS and higher NRM, mainly due to a higher rate of infections (41% vs 25%, p < 0.01). For R/R-AML, HLA-id sibling donors remain the gold standard, when available, due to higher mortality in Haplo without significant gain in disease control.
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