•The REALYSA cohort is a source of real-world data of high quality for lymphoma thanks to a multi-step rigorous data validation process.•Effectiveness results on first line DLBCL patients seem ...consistent with literature and recent clinical trials.
Real-world data are essential to complement clinical trial (CT) data, but major challenges remain, like data quality. REal world dAta in LYmphoma and Survival in Adults (REALYSA) is a prospective non-interventional multicentric cohort started in 2018 (NCT03869619) including patients newly diagnosed with lymphoma in France. Herein is a proof-of-concept analysis on first-line DLBCL patients to (i) evaluate the capacity of the cohort to provide robust data through a multi-step validation process; (ii) assess the consistency of the results; (iii) conduct an exploratory transportability assessment of two recent phase 3 CT (POLARIX, SENIOR). The analysis population comprised DLBCL patients included before March 31st 2021, who received immunochemotherapy. 645 patients were included, for whom 3589 queries were generated, resulting in high data completeness (<4% missing data). Median age was 66 years (19–98) with mostly advanced-stage disease (472; 73%) and high international prognostic index (IPI) score (IPI 2-5, 486; 76%). Treatments were mostly R-CHOP (482; 75%) and R-miniCHOP (86; 13%). Estimated 1-year EFS and OS were 77.9% (95% CI: 73.8–81.4) and 90.0% (95% CI: 86.5–92.5), respectively (median follow-up: 9.9 months). Regarding transportability, when applying trials’ main inclusion criteria (age, PS, IPI), outcomes seemed comparable between REALYSA patients and standard arms of POLARIX (1-year PFS 79.8% (95% CI, 75.9–83.6) vs. 79.8% (95% CI, 73.9–84.4)) and SENIOR (1-year EFS à 64.5% (95% CI: 47.8–77.0) vs. 60.0% (95% CI: 50.8–68.1)). With its rigorous data validation process, REALYSA program provides high-quality RWD, thus constituting a platform for numerous scientific purposes.
Abstract
Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) is a thrombotic microangiopathy that is deadly if not treated promptly. The treatment of choice in patients presenting with TTP is plasma exchanges. ...However, immunosuppressive therapy and caplacizumab have significantly improved outcomes in TTP. This microangiopathy is classically divided into 2 entities: hereditary and acquired TTP (aTTP), caused by an autoantibody against ADAMTS 13. We present a case study of a patient wth TTP occurring after a second dose of the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) COVID-19 vaccine along with a review of the literature. A 55-year-old patient presented with gastrointestinal symptoms, anemia, and severe thrombocytopenia. The blood film revealed the presence of schistocytes. A diagnosis of aTTP was established because the patient had severe ADAMTS 13 deficiency and autoantibodies against ADAMTS 13 were positive. This episode occurred 10 days after the patient received the COVID-19 vaccine. The patient received plasma exchanges, prednisone, rituximab, and caplacizumab and achieved complete remission. Ten patients with aTTP induced by the COVID-19 vaccine have been reported in the literature. Most of these situations occurred after the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and 7 patients were noted to have received the BNT162b2 vaccine. Caplacizumab was used in 6 patients, and complete remission was achieved in 8 patients.
Evaluation of MRD in multiple myeloma (MM) is becoming an important trial endpoint, especially in young patients. With current intensive approaches, the complete remission (CR) rates are up to 70%, ...making conventional evaluations of response quite useless. More sensitive tools are mandatory. Two techniques may help investigators to reach this goal, flow cytometry (FCM) and NGS. We applied both techniques to the IFM part of the IFM/DFCI 2009 trial. Briefly, this trial enrolled 700 patients under 66 years of age who were randomized to receive either 8 cycles of VRD (Velcade®-Revlimid®-Dexamethasone) (arm A), or 3 VRD cycles, high-dose melphalan, followed by two consolidation VRD cycles (arm B). All patients received a lenalidomide maintenance for 12 months. A bone marrow MRD evaluation was planned before and after maintenance for all patients achieving at least very good partial response (VGPR). A one-mL bone marrow aspirate was sent overnight to one of the central labs. The primary purpose was to assess MRD by FCM. When extra cells were available, they were frozen as a dry pellet for NGS analyses, using the LymphoSight® platform (Sequenta/Adaptive Inc.). A total of 246 patients have been evaluated by NGS before maintenance and 178 after maintenance. Patients were classified in 3 categories: negative (< 10-6), low-positive (between 10-4 and 10-6), and positive (> 10-4). At pre-maintenance, 87 patients were negative, 80 were low-positive, and 79 were positive. At post-maintenance, these numbers were respectively 86, 52, and 40. Using a cutoff at 10-6, patients below 10-6 at pre-maintenance presented a 3-year PFS at 83%, vs 53% for patients > 10-6. At post-maintenance, these % were 90% and 59% respectively. When restricted to patients in CR, the 3-year PFS was 87% and 63% at pre-maintenance, and 92% and 64% at post-maintenance (Figure). Finally, we compared the two MRD techniques. Using a 7-color FCM strategy, the sensitivity level was 10-4. Amongst the 163 patients negative with the FCM approach, 84 (51 %) patients were positive using NGS and among 72 patients positive with FCM, 67 (93%) were also positive using NGS. In the subgroup of patients with negative MRD using FCM, the 3 year PFS was 86% for NGS negative patients vs 66 % for NGS positive at pre-maintenance and 91% vs 65% at post maintenance. Looking at high-risk patients, 26 patients with t(4;14), and 16 with del(17p) were evaluated. Half of the t(4;14) patients achieved MRD negativity, versus only 1/16 patients with del(17p). Interestingly, 9/13 patients with t(4;14) who achieved MRD negativity, and 0/1 patients with del(17p) did not relapse, showing the importance of achieving deep response in these high-risk patients. In conclusion, this study clearly demonstrates that a sensitive technique like NGS is able to predict PFS in patients treated with modern approaches.
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Avet-Loiseau:Takeda: Research Funding; Celgene: Research Funding; Janssen: Research Funding. Hulin:celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; jansen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Arnulf:Janssen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Garderet:Bristol-Myers Squibb: Consultancy. Karlin:Sandoz: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Amgen: Honoraria; BMS: Honoraria; Janssen: Honoraria; Celgene: Honoraria. MACRO:millenium: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; jansen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Richardson:Jazz Pharmaceuticals: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Celgene Corporation: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Millennium Takeda: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Novartis: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Gentium S.p.A.: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding. Faham:Adaptive Biotechnologies: Employment, Equity Ownership. Facon:Onyx: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; BMS: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Janssen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Millenium: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Novartis: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Amgen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Pierre Fabre: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Moreau:Novartis: Honoraria, Other: Adboard; Takeda: Other: Adboard; Celgene: Honoraria, Other: Adboard; Janssen: Honoraria, Other: Adboard; Takeda: Honoraria, Other: Adboard; Amgen: Other: Adboard; Amgen: Other: Adboard; Novartis: Other: Adboard. Attal:celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; jansen: Honoraria.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as benzo(
a)pyrene (BP) are potent immunosuppressive environmental contaminants acting on lymphocytes and monocytes. To establish whether differentiated ...macrophages, which play a crucial role in innate and acquired immunity, can also constitute major cellular targets, we have characterized PAH effects towards primary human macrophages. BP-treatment was found to dramatically alter their functional capacities and to trigger a caspase- and mitochondrion-related apoptosis, associated with down-regulation of the survival factors c-FLIP
L and Bcl-X
L and up-regulation of the pro-apoptotic factor p53. Such deleterious effects were associated with BP metabolite production, whose inhibition by the cytochrome P-450 1A1 inhibitor α-naphthoflavone fully abolished BP toxicity. In contrast to BP, the related halogenated arylhydrocarbon 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-
p-dioxin, known to be poorly metabolized if any, only minimally affected macrophages. Overall, these data provide evidence for a cytochrome P-450-dependent toxicity of PAHs towards human differentiated macrophages, which may contribute to their immunosuppressive effects.
Blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm is a clonal disease derived from precursors of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC). It is a rare neoplasm involving the skin which may or may not be ...associated from the outset with a leukemic component. The disease invariably progresses to aggressive leukemic dissemination, leading to a differential diagnosis with acute leukemia.
In 2004, we set up a French network to recruit biological data at diagnosis. Diagnosis was according to recommendations (Swerdlow et al, 2008), with, in addition, a mandatory panel of pDC markers (Garnache-Ottou et al, 2009) detected by flow cytometry or by immunohistochemistry on infiltrated blood, bone marrow or cutaneous lesions.
In total, 109 cases of BPDCN were included in 35 hospitals (2000-2013). BPDCN is more prevalent in men (sex ratio 4.4/1) and in elderly subjects (median age: 63 years; 7 patients were <20 yo).S kin lesions are very prevalent (85%) with variable lesion types. Blood cell counts show variable leukocytosis (figure 1A) with presence of blasts in 65% of cases. Anemia and thrombopenia were present in 59% and 76% of cases respectively. Bone marrow aspiration showed blastic infiltration in 94% of cases. Indeed, in 7 cases, there was isolated cutaneous involvement at diagnosis, with neither blood nor bone marrow infiltration. Morphologies of blast cells were heterogeneous. Typical morphologies were the most frequent, including medium-sized cells with a blastic round or irregular nucleus, cytoplasm displayed faint and irregular basophilia and no granulation. In a contingent of the blastic populations, we observed small vacuoles in a peculiar arrangement under the cytoplasmic membrane (42%) or the presence of large pseudopodia (28%) or both (17%) (Figure 1B, C, D). Some cases showed a more immature morphology with larger cells, higher nucleo-cytoplasmic ratio, very visible nucleoli and reinforced basophilia (28%) or a pseudomonoblastic morphology (5%) (Figure 1E). Rare cases presented a pseudolymphocytic form (7%, figure 1F) or large granulations in the cytoplasm (2%). Peroxidase and esterase were negative in all cases. Dysplasia of hematopoietic lineages was observed in 29% (figure 1G). For 8% of patients, myelodysplastic syndrome was diagnosed before the diagnosis of BPDCN.
Immunophenotype showed that HLA-DR and CD4 were expressed in all cases, but 4 cases did not express CD56 (confirmed using 3 different antibodies). Expression of markers of others hematopoietic lineages was frequent. Among myeloid markers, the most frequent was CD33 (46%), followed by CD117 (23%), whereas CD13, CD11c, CD15 and CD65 were rarely expressed. Monocyte markers (CD14, CD64, CD11b) and myeloperoxidase were never expressed. For the T lineage, CD2 and CD7 were the most frequent (62% and 58% respectively) whereas CD5 was rare (7%). No cytoplasmic or surface CD3 were detected. For the B lineage, CD22 was expressed in 16%, and low levels of cCD79a in 5%. Both were never expressed together, and no CD19, CD20 and immunoglobulins were found. Generally, we observed one of these antigens (Ags) per case, but in 44% of cases, there was a combination of 2 or 3 Ags from 2 or 3 different lineages. Immature Ags such as CD34 and CD133 were never found, and Tdt was found in 14% of cases.
Cytogenetic analysis revealed abnormal caryotype in 65% of the 78 caryotypes evaluated, with 20 cases having a complex caryotype. The frequency of the chromosomal abnormalities involved are shown in Figure 1H.
In conclusion, we describe the largest series of BPDCN to date in the literature. Detailed clinical and biological data at presentation allow improved recognition of this rare form of acute and aggressive leukemia, enabling early initiation of appropriate management.
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Bardet:Celgene: Research Funding. Deconinck:CHUGAI: Other: Travel for international congress; PFIZER: Research Funding; ROCHE: Research Funding; NOVARTIS: Other: Travel for international congress; ALEXION: Other: Travel for international congress; JANSSEN: Other: Travel for international congress; LFB loboratory: Consultancy.
Loss of surface human leukocyte antigen-DR (HLA-DR) on monocytes is a major factor of immunosuppression in sepsis. Granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) up-regulates HLA-DR ...expression on monocytes via the GM-CSF receptor (GM-CSFr) through a transcriptional mechanism involving the class II transactivator factor (CIITA). We investigated monocyte GM-CSFr expression and its relationship with HLA-DR in septic patients.
Prospective clinical experimental study.
University hospital intensive care unit and research facility.
Septic patients with and without septic shock, control patients.
Flow cytometry and real-time quantitative reverse polymerase chain reaction were used to characterize GM-CSFr expression and transcription in septic patients and in ex vivo stimulated healthy monocytes.
We showed an early GM-CSFr down-modulation in patients with septic shock compared with those without septic shock and controls. A persistent low GM-CSFr expression was observed in patients who acquired secondary infections or in those who died, and this persistent defect correlated with severity scores. We demonstrated that GM-CSFr down-modulation occurs at a posttranscriptional level since we observed no alteration in GM-CSFr transcription in monocytes isolated from septic patients. Furthermore, we demonstrated that GM-CSFr expression levels on monocytes correlated not only with HLA-DR expression and transcription levels but also with RNA levels of its main transcriptional factor CIITA. Because we previously showed in septic patients a relationship between high cortisol plasma level and low monocyte HLA-DR expression, we investigated the effects of glucocorticoids on monocyte GM-CSFr expression and observed a similar posttranscriptional down-modulation of GM-CSFr by steroids. However, the in vivo putative role of steroids in HLA-DR down-regulation via GM-CSFr down-modulation needs further investigation.
Monocyte GM-CSFr down-modulation occurred in septic shock, was associated with severity, and might be either another manifestation of monocyte deactivation linked to sepsis or an additional mechanism participating in immunosuppression.
Prolonged Covid‐19 is an emerging issue for patients with lymphoma or immune deficiency. We aimed to examine prolonged length of in‐hospital stay (LOS) due to Covid‐19 among patients with lymphoma ...and assess its determinants and outcomes. Adult patients with lymphoma admitted for Covid‐19 to 16 French hospitals in March and April, 2020 were included. Length of in‐hospital stay was analyzed as a competitor vs death. The study included 111 patients. The median age was 65 years (range, 19–92). Ninety‐four patients (85%) had B‐cell non‐Hodgkin lymphoma. Within the 12 months prior to hospitalization for Covid‐19, 79 patients (71%) were treated for their lymphoma. Among them, 63 (57%) received an anti‐CD20 therapy. Fourteen patients (12%) had relapsed/refractory disease. The median LOS was 14 days (range, 1–235). After a median follow‐up of 191 days (3–260), the 6‐month overall survival was 69%. In multivariable analyses, recent administration of anti‐CD20 therapy was associated with prolonged LOS (subdistribution hazard ratio 2.26, 95% confidence interval 1.42–3.6, p < 0.001) and higher risk of death (hazard ratio 2.17, 95% confidence interval 1.04–4.52, p = 0.039). An age ≥ 70 years and relapsed/refractory lymphoma were also associated with prolonged LOS and decreased overall survival. In conclusion, an age ≥ 70 years, a relapsed/refractory lymphoma and recent administration of anti‐CD20 therapy are risk factors for prolonged LOS and death for lymphoma patients hospitalized for Covid‐19. These findings may contribute to guide the management of lymphoma during the pandemic, support evaluating specific therapeutic approaches, and raise questions on the efficacy and timing of vaccination of this particular population.
CD9 plays a crucial role in cellular growth, mobility, and signal transduction, as well as in hematological malignancy. In myeloid neoplasms, CD9 is involved in the altered interactions between ...leukemic and stromal cells. However, apart from its role in CD34
progenitors and myeloid and megakaryocytic differentiation, its function in normal and leukemic pluripotent cells has not yet been determined. Very small embryonic-like stem cells (VSELs) are promising pluripotent stem cells found in adult tissues that can be developed for safe and efficient regenerative medicine. VSELs express different surface receptors of the highest importance in cell functioning, including CD9, and can be effectively mobilized after organ injury or in leukemic patients. In the present study, we observed that CD9 is among the most expressed receptors in VSELs under steady-state conditions; however, once the VSELs are expanded, CD9
VSELs decrease and are more apoptotic. CD9
VSELs had no proliferative improvement in vitro compared to those that were CD9
. Interestingly, the addition of SDF-1 induced CD9 expression on the surface of VSELs, as observed by flow cytometry, and improved their migration. In addition, we observed, in the phenotypically identical VSELs present in the peripheral blood of patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms, compared to healthy subjects, a significantly higher number of CD9
cells. However, in their hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) counterparts, the expression remained comparable. These results indicate that, likewise, in progenitors and mature cells, CD9 may play an important function in normal and malignant VSELs. This could explain the refractoriness observed by some groups of expanded stem cells to repairing efficiently damaged tissue when used as a source in cell therapies. Understanding the function of the CD9 receptor in normal and malignant CD34
and VSELs, along with its relationship with the CXCR4/SDF-1 pathway, will enable advances in the field of adult pluripotent cell usage in regenerative medicine and in their role in leukemia.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a clonal malignancy of mature B cells that displays a great clinical heterogeneity, with many patients having an indolent disease that will not require ...intervention for many years, while others present an aggressive and symptomatic leukemia requiring immediate treatment. Although there is no cure for CLL, the disease is treatable and current standard chemotherapy regimens have been shown to prolong survival. Recent advances in our understanding of the biology of CLL have led to the identification of numerous cellular and molecular markers with potential diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic significance. We have used the recently developed digital multiplexed gene-expression technique (DMGE) to analyze a cohort of 30 CLL patients for the presence of specific genes with known diagnostic and prognostic potential. Starting from a set of 290 genes we were able to develop a molecular signature, based on the analysis of 13 genes, which allows distinguishing CLL from normal peripheral blood and from normal B cells, and a second signature based on 24 genes, which distinguishes mutated from unmutated cases (LymphCLL Mut). A third classifier (LymphCLL Diag), based on a 44-gene signature, distinguished CLL cases from a series of other B-cell chronic lymphoproliferative disorders (n = 51). While the methodology presented here has the potential to provide a "ready to use" classification tool in routine diagnostics and clinical trials, application to larger sample numbers are still needed and should provide further insights about its robustness and utility in clinical practice.
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