Reduced-intensity and non-myeloablative allogeneic stem cell transplantation from alternative HLA-mismatched donors for Hodgkin lymphoma: a study by the French Society of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy.

Allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) following a non-myeloablative (NMA) or reduced-intensity conditioning (RIC) is considered a valid approach to treat patients with refractory/relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma (HL). When an HLA-matched donor is lacking a graft from a familial haploidentical (HAPLO) donor, a mismatched unrelated donor (MMUD) or cord blood (CB) might be considered. In this retrospective study, we compared the outcome of patients with HL undergoing a RIC or NMA allo-SCT from HAPLO, MMUD or CB. Ninety-eight patients were included. Median follow-up was 31 months for the whole cohort. All patients in the HAPLO group (N=34) received a T-cell replete allo-SCT after a NMA (FLU-CY-TBI, N=31, 91%) or a RIC (N=3, 9%) followed by post-transplant cyclophosphamide. After adjustment for significant covariates, MMUD and CB were associated with significantly lower GvHD-free relapse-free survival (GRFS; hazard ratio (HR)=2.02, P=0.03 and HR=2.43, P=0.009, respectively) compared with HAPLO donors. In conclusion, higher GRFS was observed in Hodgkin lymphoma patients receiving a RIC or NMA allo-SCT with post-transplant cyclophosphamide from HAPLO donors. Our findings suggest they should be favoured over MMUD and CB in this setting.

Improvement of HDL- and LDL-cholesterol levels in diabetic subjects by feeding bread containing chitosan.

In this work we evaluated the efficacy and safety of a bread formulation containing chitosan in dyslipidemic type 2 diabetic subjects. For this purpose a total of 18 patients were allowed to incorporate to their habitual diets 120 g/day of bread containing 2% (wt/wt) chitosan (chitosan group, n= 9) or standard bread (control group, n= 9). Before the study and after 12 weeks on the modified diet, the following parameters were evaluated: body weight, plasma cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol, triglyceride, and hemoglobin A(1c) (HbA(1c)). Compared with the control group, the patients receiving chitosan-containing bread decreased their mean levels of LDL-cholesterol and significantly increased their mean levels of HDL-cholesterol at the end of the study. There were no significant differences in the body weight, serum triglyceride, and HbA(1c). These results suggest that chitosan incorporated into bread formulations could improve the lipoprotein balance similar to typical biliary salts trappers, increasing the HDL- and lowering the LDL-cholesterol, without changing the triglyceride levels. These results warrant further studies over a longer period of time to evaluate if a persistent improvement in levels of lipoproteins can be attained with this strategy.