The Significance of CD20 Intensity Variance in Pediatric Patients with B-Cell Precursor Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

B-cell precursor acute lyphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a common pediatric malignancy and patients may have significant benefits from monoclonal antibodies therapy with increased survival rates. Positive CD20 expression is identified in about half of these patients and its presence may serve as a prognostic factor in disease evolution. We performed a retrospective study including 114 patients diagnosed with B-ALL and evaluated the expression of CD20 through flow cytometry at diagnosis and on day 15. Additional immunophenotypic analyses as well as cytogenetic and molecular genetic analyses were also performed. We observed an increase in the mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of CD20 between diagnosis-1.9 (1.2-3.26) and day 15: 6.17 (2.14-27.4), (p < 0.0001). Furthermore, we assessed that both diagnosis and day 15 CD20 MFI had an impact on RFS and OS, respectively, for cut-off values of >8.08 at diagnosis and >28.65 at day 15. In conclusion, CD20 expression appears to be a poor prognostic feature of B-ALL in pediatric patients. In this study, stratification of the outcome by the intensity of CD20 has implications concerning the allocation to rituximab-based chemotherapy and may offer new, potentially useful information for pediatric patients with B-ALL.

Controversial Flow Cytometry Monitoring of a Relapse Case of Pediatric T Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Case Report.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most frequent childhood cancer, with 80-85% represented by B cell ALL and only 15% by T cell ALL. T Cell ALL (T-ALL) carries a more reserved prognosis compared to B Cell ALL (B-ALL) with regard to response to treatment, risk of relapse, and overall survival. Progress made in current monitoring protocols such as via flow cytometry immunophenotyping (FCM) and by PCR-based amplification of antigen-receptor genes led to improved management of patients with ALL and superior rates of survival. Nevertheless, challenges remain in some clinical cases. This manuscript describes a unique case of T-ALL and raises awareness of such clinical challenges. The article presents an overview of the flow cytometry immunophenotyping at diagnosis and during treatment of a pediatric patient with T-ALL from Fundeni Clinical Institute. In this case, in spite of various therapeutic measures such as first-line chemotherapy for high risk group, salvage chemotherapy (FLAG), conditioning regimen (FLU-BU-TT-ATG), and stem cell transplant, a chemoresistance clone continued to be present.

Gene-expression Profiling in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer with Invasion of Mediastinal Lymph Nodes for Prognosis Evaluation.

BACKGROUND/AIM: The aim of the study was to determine the pathways and expression profile of the genes that might predict response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with stage IIIA non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We evaluated, by microarray, the gene-expression profile of tumoral mediastinal lymph node samples surgically removed from 27 patients with stage IIIA NSCLC before neoadjuvant chemotherapy treatment. Depending on the response to the induction treatment, the patients were divided in two groups: group A: patients whose disease evolved, stabilized or who had minor response to chemotherapy, and group B: patients whose disease stabilized or had major response to chemotherapy. RESULTS: The microarray experiments identified 1,127 genes with a modified expression in the tumoral tissue compared to normal tissue with p≤0.05 and 44 genes with p≤0.01. The identified up-regulated genes between tumoral versus normal tissue included collagen, type I, alpha 1 (COL1A1), inhibin beta A (INHBA) and thioredoxin interacting protein (TXNIP). Pathways identified with a false-discovery rate of <0.005 included: cytokine pathways, focal adhesion or extracellular matrix receptor interaction. CONCLUSION: Our approach identified important characteristics of NSCLC and pointed-out molecular differences between sub-groups of patients based on their response to therapy.

MIC-A genotypes 4/5.1 and 9/9 are positively associated with type 1 diabetes mellitus in Brazilian population.

The aim of our study was to evaluate the frequencies of MIC-A alleles and genotypes in Brazilian patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and healthy controls. MHC class I chain-related gene-A (MIC-A) has been shown to be associated with susceptibility to T1DM in different populations. We analyzed the DNA samples from 86 patients and 201 healthy controls for MIC-A by PCR amplification, and fragment sizes were determined in an ABI prism DNA sequencer. We found increased frequencies of two genotypes, MIC-A 4/5.1 (pc = 0.006; OR, 6.1) and 9/9 (pc = 0.045; OR, 5.75), in our patients (mean diagnosis age, 11.70 years; SD, 8.86; mean age, 20.44 years; SD, 12.17) compared with the controls (median age, 26.41 years; SD, 8.87).

Frequency of latent autoimmune diabetes in adults in Asian patients diagnosed as type 2 diabetes in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

The aims of our study were to measure autoantibodies to glutamic acid decarboxylase and autoantibodies to protein tyrosine phosphatase in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, patients with impaired glucose tolerance, and healthy controls of Asian origin from Birmingham, United Kingdom. According to our findings, 27% (9/33) of patients initially diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus carry autoantibodies to GAD65.

The influence of sodium metavanadate on the process of diabetogenesis in BB rats.

Vanadium has been shown to be beneficial in the oral treatment of animal models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The aim of the study was to evaluate the short-term effects of sodium metavanadate in prediabetic BB-DP rats. To do this, 96 rats were divided into 4 equal groups. Groups V1, V2, V3 were treated with sodium metavanadate (0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 mg/ml respectively) and sodium chloride (0.5 mg/ml) in drinking water for 7 days. Group C received only sodium chloride (0.5 mg/ml). Blood glucose (BG), glycosuria, ketonuria, body weight and insulinemia were determined. The age of onset of diabetes was significantly higher for groups V2, V3 compared to group C, (p<0.05) and depends on the metavanadate concentration (V3 vs. V1, p=0.006). The incidence of diabetes was lower in the rats treated with metavanadate than in the control group, but this difference was not statistically significant. In diabetic rats, the BG at the onset was higher in group C than in groups V, p<0.05. Insulinemia, at the onset of the treatment as well as immediately after its cessation showed a drop in the treatment groups, proportionally to the dosage of vanadium, but later increased slowly and continuously until the end of the experiment. In conclusion, metavanadate delays the development of diabetes in BB-DP rats, but does not prevent its onset. A milder form of diabetes occurs in diabetic rats treated with metavanadate. The effects depend on the metavanadate concentration and 0.2 mg/ml is preferable.