The diagnosis of systemic mastocytosis (SM) is based on various clinical, dermatological, serological, and hematological findings but essentially relies on histological evidence of an abnormal ...increase in tissue-localized mast cells (MCs). The extra-cutaneous organ most frequently affected is the bone marrow (BM), and therefore, histological examination of trephine biopsy specimens of the iliac crest is mandatory on suspicion of SM. At microscopic examination, neoplastic MCs show aberrant morphology, usually with prominent spindling. Immunohistochemistry is a useful tool in the diagnosis of SM because mast cell (MC) infiltrates may be slight and scarce, in a mixed background of lymphohistiocytic cells, eosinophils, and plasma cells. Moreover, neoplastic MCs exhibit an aberrant phenotype. Recent evidence, largely derived from molecular genetics, has enhanced the diagnostic capability of SM, also providing the basis for adequate prognostic and therapeutic evaluation. The cases herein reported illustrate the variable clinical manifestations and disease course of SM, focusing on diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. In accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) classification and the International Consensus Classification (ICC) systems, our findings emphasize the importance of an integrated diagnostic approach for SM, with proper application of diverse assessment methodologies in order to improve SM classification and treatment effectiveness.
Patients with B-cell lymphoma are a fragile category of subjects, particularly exposed to infections and characterized by an impaired vaccination response due to the disease itself and, even more, to ...the chemotherapy regimen. For this reason, extensive knowledge of the immune response status of these subjects is of fundamental importance to obtain possible indications for a tailored immunization strategy.
We enrolled two cohorts of patients with B-cell lymphoma under rituximab treatment or 3-24 months after treatment. In all patients, we evaluated both humoral and cellular immunological memory toward SARS-CoV-2, after standard vaccination and upon one booster dose.
We observed no Spike-specific IgG production in patients (n = 25) under anti-CD20 treatment, whereas patients (n = 16) vaccinated after the completion of chemotherapy showed a higher humoral response. Evaluating SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell response, we found that patients in both cohorts had developed robust cellular immunity after vaccination. Of the 21 patients (51%) that experienced a breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infection, only six patients developed severe disease. Interestingly, these six patients had all been treated with rituximab plus bendamustine. Notably, we observed that Spike-specific IgG levels in patients treated with rituximab plus bendamustine were absent or lower compared with those in patients treated with rituximab plus other chemotherapy, whereas Spike-specific T-cell response was not different based on chemotherapy regiment.
Our results show that, in patients with B-cell lymphoma under rituximab therapy, anti-SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination induces a weak or absent humoral response but a consistent T-cell response. In addition, chemotherapy regimens with bendamustine further reduce patients' ability to mount a Spike-specific humoral response even after a long time period from chemotherapy discontinuation. These results provide evidence that different chemotherapeutics display different immunosuppressive properties that could be taken in to account in the choice of the right drug regimen for the right patient. Moreover, they question whether immunocompromised patients, particularly those treated with bendamustine, need interventions to improve vaccine-induced immune response.
This study tested the diagnostic value of 18F-FDG PET/CT (FDG-PET) volumetric and texture parameters in the histological differentiation of mediastinal bulky disease due to classical Hodgkin lymphoma ...(cHL), primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma (PMBCL) and grey zone lymphoma (GZL), using machine learning techniques.
We reviewed 80 cHL, 29 PMBCL and 8 GZL adult patients with mediastinal bulky disease and histopathological diagnoses who underwent FDG-PET pre-treatment. Volumetric and radiomic parameters were measured using FDG-PET both for bulky lesions (BL) and for all lesions (AL) using LIFEx software (threshold SUV ≥ 2.5). Binary and multiclass classifications were performed with various machine learning techniques fed by a relevant subset of radiomic features.
The analysis showed significant differences between the lymphoma groups in terms of SUVmax, SUVmean, MTV, TLG and several textural features of both first- and second-order grey level. Among machine learning classifiers, the tree-based ensembles achieved the best performance both for binary and multiclass classifications in histological differentiation.
Our results support the value of metabolic heterogeneity as an imaging biomarker, and the use of radiomic features for early characterization of mediastinal bulky lymphoma.
Summary
Survival prediction in essential thrombocythaemia (ET) and polycythaemia vera (PV) is currently based on clinically‐derived variables; we examined the possibility of integrating genetic ...information for predicting survival. To this end, 906 molecularly‐annotated patients (416 Mayo Clinic; 490 University of Florence, Italy), including 502 ET and 404 PV, were recruited. Multivariable analysis identified spliceosome mutations to adversely affect overall (SF3B1, SRSF2 in ET and SRSF2 in PV) and myelofibrosis‐free (U2AF1, SF3B1 in ET) survival; TP53 mutations predicted leukaemic transformation in ET; “adverse” mutations occurred in 51 (10%) ET and 8 (2%) PV patients. We confirmed the independent survival effect of adverse mutations hazard ratio (HR) 2·4, 95% CI 1·6–3·5, age >60 years (6·6, 4·6–9·7), male sex (1·8, 1·3–2·4) and leukocytosis ≥11 × 109/l (1·6, 1·1–2·2), in ET, and adverse mutations (7·8, 3·1–17·0), age >67 years (5·4, 3·6–8·1), leukocytosis ≥15 × 109/l (2·8, 1·8–4·2) and thrombosis history (2·0, 1·4–2·9), in PV. HR‐based risk point allocation allowed development of three‐tiered mutation‐enhanced international prognostic systems (MIPSS) which were validated in both cohorts and performance was shown to be superior to conventional scoring systems. Spliceosome mutations enhance survival prediction in ET and PV and identify patients at risk for fibrotic progression. TP53 mutations predict leukaemic transformation in ET.
Overwhelming inflammatory reactions contribute to respiratory distress in patients with COVID-19. Ruxolitinib is a JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor with potent anti-inflammatory properties. We report on a ...prospective, observational study in 34 patients with COVID-19 who received ruxolitinib on a compassionate-use protocol. Patients had severe pulmonary disease defined by pulmonary infiltrates on imaging and an oxygen saturation ≤ 93% in air and/or PaO2/FiO2 ratio ≤ 300 mmHg. Median age was 80.5 years, and 85.3% had ≥ 2 comorbidities. Median exposure time to ruxolitinib was 13 days, median dose intensity was 20 mg/day. Overall survival by day 28 was 94.1%. Cumulative incidence of clinical improvement of ≥2 points in the ordinal scale was 82.4% (95% confidence interval, 71-93). Clinical improvement was not affected by low-flow versus high-flow oxygen support but was less frequent in patients with PaO2/FiO2 < 200 mmHg. The most frequent adverse events were anemia, urinary tract infections, and thrombocytopenia. Improvement of inflammatory cytokine profile and activated lymphocyte subsets was observed at day 14. In this prospective cohort of aged and high-risk comorbidity patients with severe COVID-19, compassionate-use ruxolitinib was safe and was associated with improvement of pulmonary function and discharge home in 85.3%. Controlled clinical trials are necessary to establish efficacy of ruxolitinib in COVID-19.
Introduction and methods: Mediastinal gray zone lymphoma (GZL) emerged as a rare and challenging entity due to its high rate of pathological reclassification and heterogeneous clinical management. ...The bio-GZL2020 study was designed to centralize histological samples and clinical data of patients (pts) diagnosed with GZL between 2006 and 2020 in 16 Italian hematological centers. We here report the preliminary clinical results of this retrospective analysis. Results: Overall, we collected samples and clinical data of 68 pts with GZL. According to the 2022 WHO and ICC classifications we excluded nine pts for lacking mediastinal involvement, hence 59 pts were analyzed. Pts were mostly stage I-II (62.7%); 57.6% had a mediastinal bulky disease. The site of diagnostic biopsy was the mediastinum in 29 pts. Additional clinical characteristics at baseline are reported in Table 1. One patient died before the start of treatment and was excluded from survival analysis. First line chemotherapy (CHT) consisted in DA-EPOCH in 31 pts, CHOP-like regimens in 17 pts, ABVD in six pts, MACOP-B in three pts and DHAP in only one case. Eight pts did not receive rituximab with CHT (six ABVD pts, two CHOP-like pts). Dose escalation in R-DA-EPOCH was performed in 75% of pts, with 18 pts (64.3%) attaining level 3 or higher. Four advanced stage, high-risk pts received central nervous system prophylaxis. Twenty-two pts performed an interim PET-scan during first line therapy; data on Deauville score was available in 19 cases, with 9 pts obtaining a score 1-3. Restaging after first line CHT showed 37 pts in complete remission (CR; 63.8%), nine pts in partial remission (PR; 15.5%), five pts in stable disease (SD; 8.6%) and seven pts in progressive disease (PD; 12.1%). Thirty-one pts (53.4%) received a consolidative treatment (26 pts radiotherapy (RT) only, seven pts autologous transplant (ASCT) only, two pts both RT and ASCT). Restaging after first line consolidation showed 43 CR (74.1%), four PR (6.9%), two SD (5.2%) and eight PD (13.8%). Nineteen pts underwent a second line CHT, 16 of them with a platinum-based regimen; brentuximab vedotin, BeGEV and HyperCVAD were used in one patient each. Second line consolidation ASCT was performed in seven pts, while one received an allogeneic transplant. Of the 17 restaged pts after second line CHT seven were in CR, 10 were not responsive (four SD, six PD). Considering all salvage lines five pts received a checkpoint inhibitor, nine underwent brentuximab vedotin treatment. Overall survival (OS) was 86.9% at 5 years and 71.3% at 10 years; beta2-microglobulin (available only in 32 pts) and the response after first line therapy were associated to a statistically significant difference in OS in univariate analysis. Progression-free survival (PFS) was 61.9% at 5 and 10 years. The use of rituximab, the Deauville score 1-3 at interim PET during induction, and the response after first line therapy were associated to a statistically significant difference in PFS in univariate analysis. ABVD was associated to poorer results in terms of OS and PFS although no significant difference was observed. No statistically significant difference in term of PFS was observed between pts treated with intensified regimens (DA-EPOCH, MACOP-B, DHAP) and other treatments in first line. Excluding pts directly shifted to salvage therapy, consolidative RT after first line CHT showed no statistically significance in term of both OS and PFS. Conclusions: To our knowledge our study represents the largest retrospective data collection on GZL among hematological Italian centers. This preliminary analysis did not show a clear advantage of intensive therapies such as DA-EPOCH or MACOPB, while the positive prognostic role of rituximab was confirmed in PFS. The prognostic role of interim PET-CT scan seems interesting and should be evaluated in subsequent trials. Further refinement of the reported results is expected in relation of an ongoing central pathological review by a panel of expert hematopathologists.
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