[New Drugs in the Treatment of Acute Myeloid Leukemia in the Elderly]. / Nové léky v terapii akutní myeloidní leukemie u starsích pacientu.

BACKGROUND: At the time of diagnosis, most patients with acute myeloid leukemia are older than 65 years of age. Treatment of this group of patients is challenging because they become less tolerant to aggressive chemotherapy with increasing age. Less than one-third of elderly patients are considered eligible for intensive treatment; nevertheless, the survival analysis for this population remains poor. Due to numerous comorbidities and an overall deteriorating condition, most elderly patients with acute myeloid leukemia receive only palliative or best supportive care, which are associated with a high mortality rate. New therapeutic approaches are expected to improve the overall survival and quality of life of this group of patients. These promising treatments include cell kinase inhibitors, cytotoxic agents, monoclonal antibodies, and epigenetic therapy including hypomethylating agents and inhibitors of isocitrate dehydrogenase and histone deacetylase. In monotherapy, these new drugs show lower levels of toxicity than those commonly used in chemotherapy; however, they do not lead to a better long-lasting treatment response. To enhance therapeutic efficacy, combinations of the above-mentioned treatments are often used, and, during clinical trials, combinations with standard cytostatics are also common. The promising results of these studies show that even low-toxicity therapies can lead to a better overall treatment response and to longer overall survival. AIM: This article provides a brief overview of new drugs that are evaluated for their mechanism of effect, efficacy and toxicity in therapy of patients suffering from acute myeloid leukemia.Key words: acute myeloid leukemia - elderly - FLT3 inhibitors - epigenetic therapy - monoclonal antibodies The authors declare they have no potential conflicts of interest concerning drugs, products, or services used in the study. The Editorial Board declares that the manuscript met the ICMJE recommendation for biomedical papers.Submitted: 4. 11. 2016Accepted: 13. 12. 2016.

[Molecular Genetic Testing for Acute Myeloid Leukemia]. / Molekulárne genetické vysetrení u akutní myeloidní leukemie.

BACKGROUND: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a clinically complex and very heterogeneous disease at the molecular level. Conventional cytogenetic analysis and FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) tests provide important information about the biological and clinical background of the disease and enable the classification of AML patients into three risk groups. However, up to half of patients have normal cytogenetics. Determining prognosis and treatment strategies in this group of patients is challenging. The development of molecular genetic methods, including next generation sequencing in the last decade, has led to the discovery of a number of recurrent mutations that have contributed to increasing the accuracy of prognosis of those patients with cytogenetically normal AML. Besides the prognostic value of these mutations, they may also be used to monitor minimal residual disease during and after treatment of AML and additionally constitute potential targets for the development of new therapeutic agents. The importance of molecular genetic testing of all patients with AML is highlighted by the WHO classification of 2008 in which subgroups of AML are purely defined by molecular genetics markers. AIM: In this article, we provide an overview of the most significant mutations in patients with cytogenetically normal AML. We describe their significance for prognosis, their importance in monitoring minimal residual disease, and their potential for the development of new targeted therapies. Further, we briefly draw attention to the significance of gene mutation accumulation in clonal disease development and how it affects the time of AML relapse.

[Diagnosis of supravalvular aortic stenosis using 2-dimensional echocardiography]. / Diagnostika supravalvulárnej aortálnej stenózy pomocou dvojrozmernej echokardiografie.

In 13 children supravalvular aortic stenosis was diagnosed by two-dimensional echocardiography on the basis of a diminished inner diameter of the aorta in the supravalvular region "d2" compared with the inner diameter of the aortic annulus "d1". The differences in the values of "d2" and "d1" were only on the border of statistical significance. The difference in the d2/d1 ratio between the group of patients and healthy controls was statistically significant (p less than 0.001). Two-dimensional echocardiography is a very sensitive method for diagnosing supravalvular aortic stenosis. This sensitivity has been confirmed also by detecting the diminished inner diameter of the aorta in the supravalvular region in children with Williams-Beuren syndrome without clinical signs of a heart defect.

[The importance of pulmonary angiography in the surgical treatment of congenital heart defects with a left-right shunt and pulmonary hypertension]. / Význam pulmoangiografie pre indikáciu na chirurgickú liecbu vrodených srdcových chýb s l'avo-pravým skratom a pl'úcnou hypertenziou.

The studied series consisted of 14 patients with ventricular septal defect and pulmonary hypertension aged from 3 months to 15 years. Three examination methods were compared: (1) Invasive hemodynamic examination; (2) Pulmoangiographic examination by means of wedge peripheral pulmoangiography; (3) Histological examination of bioptic samples. Direct correlation was found to exist between mean PA pressure, PAR/m2, TPR/SR and pulmoangiographic records, in which the following parameters were evaluated: (a) length of the narrowing of the peripheral branch of the PA, (b) background opacity, (c) circulation time. The histological findings obtained in the bioptic samples corresponded practically in all cases with the hemodynamic and PAG findings. Only in two patients did the histological picture display a less severe degree of affection than found by PAG and hemodynamic examination. The obtained results suggest that in light of surgical indications, PAG can be considered a suitable and valuable supplementary method in assessing borderline findings of pulmonary hypertension in children with congenital heart defects and left-to-right shunt.