Brave new world: expanding home care in stem cell transplantation and advanced therapies with new technologies.

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and cell therapies like CAR-T are costly, complex therapeutic procedures. Outpatient models, including at-home transplantation, have been developed, resulting in similar survival results, reduced costs, and increased patient satisfaction. The complexity and safety of the process can be addressed with various emerging technologies (artificial intelligence, wearable sensors, point-of-care analytical devices, drones, virtual assistants) that allow continuous patient monitoring and improved decision-making processes. Patients, caregivers, and staff can also benefit from improved training with simulation or virtual reality. However, many technical, operational, and above all, ethical concerns need to be addressed. Finally, outpatient or at-home hematopoietic transplantation or CAR-T therapy creates a different, integrated operative system that must be planned, designed, and carefully adapted to the patient's characteristics and distance from the hospital. Patients, clinicians, and their clinical environments can benefit from technically improved at-home transplantation.

Feasibility of a Hospital-at-Home Program for Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation.

The Hospital at Home (HaH) model has been positioned as an appropriate therapeutic strategy for selected patients undergoing autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (ASCT). This care model provides hospital-equivalent care, in terms of both quality and quantity, with medical and nursing staff that go to the patient's home. Here we describe our experience with a full HaH model for patients undergoing ASCT during the phase of aplasia. The patients met the eligibility criteria between January 1997 and December 2019 and were discharged from the hospital and admitted into the HaH-ASCT program on the same day they in which hematopoietic stem cells were infused. A total of 84 patients were included. The median patient age was 54 years (range, 16 to 74 years), and the median duration of participation in the HaH program was 17 days (range, 3 to 86 days). Only 10 of these patients (12%) required hospital readmission to the hematology department, 9 of them due to sepsis and 1 because of family care support claudication. Seventy-two patients (86%) experienced an episode of neutropenic fever during the HAH admission, with a median duration of 2 days (interquartile range [IQR], 1 to 11 days); all were treated with empiric i.v. antimicrobial therapy. Most patients (88%) presented with mucositis (44% with grade 3-4). Parenteral nutrition was administered in 26% of patients for a median of 6 days (IQR, 1 to 12 days). Most patients (94%) required at least 1 blood product transfusion at home. There was no transplantation-related mortality during the HaH-ASCT program or in the patients who were readmitted. With careful selection of patients and a comprehensive and well- experienced multidisciplinary team (doctors, nurses, and auxiliary nurses) in the HaH department and in close collaboration with the hematology department, complete at-home management of ASCT recipients immediately after transplantation is possible. This allows patients undergoing an aggressive procedure such as ASCT to remain in their own familiar environment, providing a better quality of life with a program that has demonstrated to be effective and safe, with a low incidence of complications and no associated mortality.

Evaluación del progreso pondo-estatural en niños alimentados en forma exclusiva con leche materna o leche de vaca / Evaluation of the rate of growth in children fed exclusively with human milk or cow milk

Se analizaron 215 niños alimentados en forma exclusiva y desde el nacimiento con un solo tipo de leche. El Grupo I (GI) correspondió a 124 niños alimentados con leche materna y el Grupo II (GII) a 91 niños que recibieron formulas de leche de vaca. Se observo que el GI presento menor cantidad de episodios de infecciones gastrointestinales agudas (P:0,02)No se hallaron diferencias significativas (P:0,12) en relación a los procesos infecciosos agudos de las vías respiratorias. En el análisis de peso y talla a los 6 meses de vida se encontró una diferencia significativa con respecto al peso en el GII (P:0,041), pero no en relación a talla (P:0,25)A los 12 meses de vida la diferencia de peso (P:0,003) y talla (P:0,004) fueron altamente significativas, siendo mayores en los niños de GII.Los resultados indican que los niños del GI presentaron menor número de infecciones del tracto digestivo que los del GII, pero estos últimos ganaron mayor peso y talla. Estos datos parecen indicar que una ganancia de peso y talla mayor no siempre se acompaña de menor número de episodios infecciosos.

Evaluación de un suplemento probiótico en la recuperación nutricional de pacientes celíacos sometidos a una dieta SIN TACC / The use of probiotic supplement on the nutritional recovery of celiac patients on gluten-free diet

Se presentan los resultados del progreso de peso de 45 pacientes celíacos de reciente diagnóstico bajo dieta SIN TACC (sin trigo, avena, cebada y centeno), a 23 de los cuales se les agregó un suplemento probiótico, 22 sirvieron de grupo control. Se analizaron también aspectos ambientales y culturales. Si bien el mayor incremento de peso se observó en el grupo que recibió suplemento en la etapa de la recuperación nutricional, este progreso no mostró diferencias estadísticamente significativas. Creemos que el probiótico, la dosis diaria indicada y el tiempo de administración deben ser variables a estudiar en un futuro próximo. Los grupos fueron similares para otras variables potencialmente confundentes.

Celiaquia, una enfermedad paradigmática / Celiac Disease, a paradigmatic disease

Se presentan 10 pacientes recientemente diagnosticados como celíacos, ninguno de los cuales presentaba desnutrición, ni sintomatología sugerente de malabsorción. Seis tenían un pariente celíaco en primer grado, tres diabetes de tipo uno y el restante una tesaurismosis. Todos presentan autoanticuerpos IgA, EMA positivos y ocho IgA tTG2 positiva, los dos restantes tenían valores normales. Las biopsias que facilitaron el diagnóstico de enfermedad celíaca, fueron tomadas previo examen endoscópico minucioso en las áreas proximales y distales del duodeno. La biopsia duodenal (3ra o 4ta porción) de todos estos pacientes se hallaba dentro de límites normales. Los hallazgos resultan particularmente interesantes e ilustrativos para com- paginar o explicar aquellas aparentes discordancias entre la clínica, el laboratorio y la histopatología