To investigate the prognostic contribution of absolute neutrophil (ANC), lymphocyte (ALC), platelet count and their ratios, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), to ...thrombotic risk in patients with prefibrotic and overt fibrotic myelofibrosis (MF).
We retrospectively analyzed a cohort of 256 patients with prefibrotic (85 patients) and overt fibrotic MF (171 patients) treated in six Croatian hematological centers.
Prefibrotic compared to overt fibrotic MF patients presented with significantly higher ALC, platelet count and PLR, and experienced longer time to thrombosis (TTT). Among prefibrotic patients, ANC > 8.33 × 10
/L (HR 13.08,
= 0.036), ALC > 2.58 × 10
/L (HR 20.63,
= 0.049) and platelet count > 752 × 10
/L (HR 10.5,
= 0.043) remained independently associated with shorter TTT. Among overt fibrotic patients, ANC > 8.8 × 10
/L (HR 4.49,
= 0.004), ALC ≤ 1.43 × 10
/L (HR 4.15,
= 0.003), platelet count ≤ 385 × 10
/L (HR 4.68,
= 0.004) and chronic kidney disease (HR 9.07,
< 0.001) remained independently associated with shorter TTT.
Prognostic properties of ANC, ALC and platelet count are mutually independent and exceed those of NLR and PLR regarding thrombotic risk stratification. ALC and platelet count associate in opposite directions with thrombotic risk in prefibrotic and overt fibrotic MF patients.
During the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic many efforts have gone into the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies as possible therapeutics. Currently, conclusions cannot be drawn due to the ...lack of standardization in antibody assessments. Here we describe an approach of establishing antibody characterisation in emergent times which would, if followed, enable comparison of results from different studies. The key component is a reliable and reproducible assay of wild-type SARS-CoV-2 neutralisation based on a banking system of its biological components - a challenge virus, cells and an anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody in-house standard, calibrated to the First WHO International Standard immediately upon its availability. Consequently, all collected serological data were retrospectively expressed in an internationally comparable way. The neutralising antibodies (NAbs) among convalescents ranged from 4 to 2869 IU mL
in a significant positive correlation to the disease severity. Their decline in convalescents was on average 1.4-fold in a one-month period. Heat-inactivation resulted in 2.3-fold decrease of NAb titres in comparison to the native sera, implying significant complement activating properties of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies. The monitoring of NAb titres in the sera of immunocompromised COVID-19 patients that lacked their own antibodies evidenced the successful transfusion of antibodies by the COVID-19 convalescent plasma units with NAb titres of 35 IU mL
or higher.
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