Adjuvant tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy improves outcome for children and adolescents with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia who have an ABL-class fusion.

Patients with an ABL-class fusion have a high risk of relapse on standard chemotherapy but are sensitive to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). In UKALL2011, we screened patients with post-induction MRD ≥1% and positive patients (12%) received adjuvant TKI. As the intervention started during UKALL2011, not all eligible patients were screened prospectively. Retrospective screening of eligible patients allowed the outcome of equivalent ABL-class patients who did and did not receive a TKI in first remission to be compared. ABL-class patients who received a TKI in first remission had a reduced risk of relapse/refractory disease: 0% vs. 63% at four years (P = 0·009).

International cooperative study identifies treatment strategy in childhood ambiguous lineage leukemia.

Despite attempts to improve the definitions of ambiguous lineage leukemia (ALAL) during the last 2 decades, general therapy recommendations are missing. Herein, we report a large cohort of children with ALAL and propose a treatment strategy. A retrospective multinational study (International Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster Study of Leukemias of Ambiguous Lineage [iBFM-AMBI2012]) of 233 cases of pediatric ALAL patients is presented. Survival statistics were used to compare the prognosis of subsets and types of treatment. Five-year event-free survival (EFS) of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)-type primary therapy (80% ± 4%) was superior to that of children who received acute myeloid leukemia (AML)-type or combined-type treatment (36% ± 7.2% and 50% ± 12%, respectively). When ALL- or AML-specific gene fusions were excluded, 5-year EFS of CD19+ leukemia was 83% ± 5.3% on ALL-type primary treatment compared with 0% ± 0% and 28% ± 14% on AML-type and combined-type primary treatment, respectively. Superiority of ALL-type treatment was documented in single-population mixed phenotype ALAL (using World Health Organization and/or European Group for Immunophenotyping of Leukemia definitions) and bilineal ALAL. Treatment with ALL-type protocols is recommended for the majority of pediatric patients with ALAL, including cases with CD19+ ALAL. AML-type treatment is preferred in a minority of ALAL cases with CD19- and no other lymphoid features. No overall benefit of transplantation was documented, and it could be introduced in some patients with a poor response to treatment. As no clear indicator was found for a change in treatment type, this is to be considered only in cases with ≥5% blasts after remission induction. The results provide a basis for a prospective trial.

Caplacizumab in pediatric immune thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura: the UK TTP Registry experience.

ABSTRACT: Pediatric thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) is an ultrarare disease. Immune TTP (iTTP) is driven by anti-ADAMTS13 autoantibodies causing an imbalanced von Willebrand factor (VWF):ADAMTS13 axis, and rarer still in children, but potentially life-threatening. Caplacizumab is licensed for iTTP treatment in adults and adolescents aged ≥12 years who weigh ≥40 kg. There is a need to clarify whether caplacizumab can be used in younger children. We retrospectively described caplacizumab use in 16 patients under 18 years of age from the UK TTP Registry, including 4 children aged <12 years. For patients weighing <40 kg (n = 3), caplacizumab was dosed at 5 mg once dailyThe youngest patient was 33 months old at diagnosis. Plasma exchange (PEX) was used in 15 patients, with a median of 5 exchanges required before platelet count normalization (range, 2-9). One patient was managed without PEX. All patients achieved normalization of platelet count (median, 5.5 days; range, 3-28) and ADAMTS13 activity (median, 35 days; range, 8-149), with a median hospital admission of 11 days (range, 5-26). There were no refractory patients. One patient relapsed 9 months after presentation. Bleeding requiring VWF supplementation and reduction of caplacizumab use occurred in 1 patient with severe epistaxis, with no significant intracranial or gastrointestinal bleeding. We demonstrated the efficacy and safety of caplacizumab in the pediatric population, which is synonymous with the adult trial data: primarily, reduction of PEX compared with the precaplacizumab era. This has implications for the intensification and duration of admission, particularly relevant in pediatric care.

A comprehensive targeted next-generation sequencing panel for genetic diagnosis of patients with suspected inherited thrombocytopenia.

BACKGROUND: Inherited thrombocytopenias (ITs) are a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by low platelet counts and often disproportionate bleeding with over 30 genes currently implicated. Previously the UK-GAPP study using whole exome sequencing (WES) identified a pathogenic variant in 19 of 47 (40%) patients of which 71% had variants in genes known to cause IT. AIMS: To employ a targeted next-generation sequencing platform to improve efficiency of diagnostic testing and reduce overall costs. METHODS: We have developed an IT-specific gene panel as a pre-screen for patients prior to WES using the Agilent SureSelectQXT transposon-based enrichment system. RESULTS: Thirty-one patients were analyzed using the panel-based sequencing, of which; 10% (3/31) were identified with a classified pathogenic variant, 16% (5/31) were identified with a likely pathogenic variant, 51% (16/31) were identified with variants of unknown significance, and 23% (7/31) were identified with either no variant or a benign variant. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Although requiring further clarification of the impact of the genetic variations, the application of an IT-specific next generation sequencing panel is an viable method of pre-screening patients for variants in known IT-causing genes prior to WES. With an added benefit of distinguishing IT from idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) and the potential to identify variants in genes known to have a predisposition to hematological malignancies, it could become a critical step in improving patient clinical management.