Clinical improvement of diffuse lymphangiomatosis with pegylated interferon alfa-2b therapy: case report and review of the literature.

Diffuse lymphangiomatosis is a very rare congenital disease, characterized by diffuse or multifocal lymphangioma in the skeletal tissue, spleen, liver, mediastinum, and/or lung. The prognosis is usually poor, especially for children with thoracic lesion, and treatments for the disease are controversial. The authors report a 9-year-old boy with diffuse lymphangiomatosis involving the thorax with pleural effusions, the spleen, and systemic bone. The patient was treated with pegylated interferon alfa-2b, and achieved good clinical and radiological improvement.

Leukemic cell death induced by antithymocyte globulin.

We studied the cytotoxic effects of antithymocyte globulin (ATG) in leukemic cells obtained from five patients with acute T lymphoblastic leukemia or precursor T lymphoblastic leukemia. ATG by itself killed leukemic cells in a dose-dependent manner. Simultaneous incubation with human AB or baby rabbit serum resulted in increased cytolysis of leukemic cells. These results suggested the presence of both direct and complement-mediated cytolysis. We also examined apoptotic cell death using Annexin-V. Cell incubation with ATG increased Annexin-V binding significantly compared with horse IgG (50.3+/-7.6% versus 95.7+/-1.8%, p = or < 0.0001). However, ATG did not induce apparent DNA fragmentation in a human T-ALL cell line. Neither anti-Fas MoAb (ZB4) nor a broad caspase inhibitor (z-VAD FMK) prevented this increase in Annexin-V binding. These results suggest that ATG induces leukemic cell death in a Fas/Fas-ligand- and caspase-independent manner.