Music Listening in Stem Cell Transplantation and Acute Myeloid Leukemia: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

CONTEXT: Music listening (ML) has been shown to have a beneficial effect on patients with cancer. However, novel intervention approaches are needed. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to determine whether ML based on the iso-principle, conducted using a mobile application (GloMus), improves symptom burden, quality of life (QoL), anxiety, and depression in patients undergoing stem cell transplantation (SCT) and intensive induction chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). METHODS: In this randomized controlled clinical trial, we assigned 71 patients to the ML or standard care (SC) groups, stratified by the reason for admission (AML, allogeneic-SCT, or inpatient/outpatient autologous-SCT). Upon admission, participants in the ML groups were invited to undergo daily ML sessions designed to change negative moods into positive ones (iso-principle). The intervention consisted of listening to pre-recorded classical music ordered by beats per minute and tonality. Symptom burden (Edmonton Symptom Assessment System-Revised) was assessed in the ML groups before and after each session. Anxiety, depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), and QoL (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Bone Marrow Transplantation/Leukemia) were measured weekly in the ML and SC groups. RESULTS: Symptom burden in both allogeneic- and inpatient autologous-SCT ML groups reduced after the intervention. In all experimental groups, clinically important improvements were observed after ML sessions. No differences were found between the groups (ML vs. SC) at different weeks of admission regarding anxiety, depression, and QoL. CONCLUSIONS: ML based on our innovative iso-principle strategy, conducted using GloMus, reduced the symptom burden in patients undergoing allogeneic- and inpatient autologous-SCT (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT05696457).

Understanding the Wnt Signaling Pathway in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Stem Cells: A Feasible Key against Relapses.

Wnt signaling is a highly conserved pathway in evolution which controls important processes such as cell proliferation, differentiation and migration, both in the embryo and in the adult. Dysregulation of this pathway can favor the development of different types of cancer, such as acute myeloid leukemia and other hematological malignancies. Overactivation of this pathway may promote the transformation of pre-leukemic stem cells into acute myeloid leukemia stem cells, as well as the maintenance of their quiescent state, which confers them with self-renewal and chemoresistance capacity, favoring relapse of the disease. Although this pathway participates in the regulation of normal hematopoiesis, its requirements seem to be greater in the leukemic stem cell population. In this review, we explore the possible therapeutic targeting of Wnt to eradicate the LSCs of AML.

Spontaneous Remission of Acute Myeloid Leukemia: A Case Report.

Spontaneous remissions (SRs) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are infrequent, poorly documented and transient. Similarly, morphological and cytogenetic complete remissions (CR) under azacitidine treatment are scarce. We report a 71-year-old man with a secondary AML arising from essential thrombocythemia (ET), who developed an SR after discontinuation of azacitidine following a respiratory infection (four courses were administered). The distinctive feature of our case is the depth of the achieved CR, documented by next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques. We also detected persistence of molecular lesions that might already have been present in the previous ET clone. Our patient relapsed 5 months after achieving CR. We conclude that our patient showed a spontaneous remission of his AML rather than an exquisite response to azacitidine. We hypothesize that the concurrent respiratory infection, or any other unknown trigger, might have activated his immune system forcing the leukemic stem cell to enter a quiescent state through a yet unexplained mechanism.

Identification of seasonal variation in the diagnosis of acute myeloid leukaemia: a population-based study.

Until now, the role that seasonal factors play in the aetiology of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) has been unclear. Demonstration of seasonality in AML diagnosis would provide supportive evidence of an underlying seasonal aetiology. To investigate the potential seasonal and long-term trends in AML diagnosis in an overall population and in subgroups according to sex and age, we used population-based data from a Spanish hospital discharge registry. We conducted a larger study than any to date of 26 472 cases of AML diagnosed in Spain between 2004 and 2015. Using multivariable Poisson generalized linear autoregressive moving average modelling, we found an upward long-term trend, with monthly incidence rates of AML annually increasing by 0.4% [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.2%-0.6%; p = 0.0011]. January displayed the highest incidence rate of AML, with a minimum average difference of 7% when compared to February (95% CI, 2%-12%; p = 0.0143) and a maximum average difference of 16% compared to November (95% CI, 11%-21%; p < 0.0001) and August (95% CI, 10%-21%; p < 0.0001). Such seasonal effect was consistent among subgroups according to sex and age. Our finding that AML diagnosis is seasonal strongly implies that seasonal factors, such as infectious agents or environmental triggers, influence the development and/or proliferation of disease, pointing to prevention opportunities.

Understanding the Notch Signaling Pathway in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Stem Cells: From Hematopoiesis to Neoplasia.

The Notch signaling pathway is fundamental to early fetal development, but its role in acute myeloid leukemia is still unclear. It is important to elucidate the function that contains Notch, not only in acute myeloid leukemia, but in leukemic stem cells (LSCs). LSCs seem to be the principal cause of patient relapse. This population is in a quiescent state. Signaling pathways that govern this process must be understood to increase the chemosensitivity of this compartment. In this review, we focus on the conserved Notch signaling pathway, and its repercussions in hematopoiesis and hematological neoplasia. We found in the literature both visions regarding Notch activity in acute myeloid leukemia. On one hand, the activation of Notch leads to cell proliferation, on the other hand, the activation of Notch leads to cell cycle arrest. This dilemma requires further experiments to be answered, in order to understand the role of Notch not only in acute myeloid leukemia, but especially in LSCs.

Flow Cytometry and Molecular Techniques Could Complement Morphological Detection of Leukemic Infiltration in Ascitic Fluids: A Case Report.

Extramedullary involvement of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is infrequent, and ascitic infiltration is even more unusual. We present a case of a 48-year-old woman diagnosed with NPM1-mutated AML that debuted with ascites, for which morphological studies of the ascitic fluid did not detect leukemic infiltration, maybe due to technical problems in the sample preparation. Multiparameter flow cytometry (MFC) detected a blast population compatible with AML, and allele-specific PCR detected NPM1-mutated transcripts. Body fluid infiltrations are an infrequent initial manifestation or sign of progression in AML. As far as we know, this is the first reported case of an NPM1-mutated AML that debuted with ascites, and also the first description of the utilization of molecular techniques to detect the leukemic origin of the ascites. This case highlights that, given that allele-specific PCR and MFC increase the sensitivity of morphological studies, these techniques should be routinely applied in the study of any kind of effusion detected in an AML patient.

Prognostic significance of FLT3-ITD length in AML patients treated with intensive regimens.

FLT3-ITD mutations are detected in approximately 25% of newly diagnosed adult acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients and confer an adverse prognosis. The FLT3-ITD allelic ratio has clear prognostic value. Nevertheless, there are numerous manuscripts with contradictory results regarding the prognostic relevance of the length and insertion site (IS) of the FLT3-ITD fragment. We aimed to assess the prognostic impact of these variables on the complete remission (CR) rates, overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) of AML patients with FLT3-ITDmutations. We studied the FLT3-ITD length of 362 adult AML patients included in the PETHEMA AML registry. We tried to validate the thresholds of ITD length previously published (i.e., 39 bp and 70 bp) in intensively treated AML patients (n = 161). We also analyzed the mutational profile of 118 FLT3-ITD AML patients with an NGS panel of 39 genes and correlated mutational status with the length and IS of ITD. The AUC of the ROC curve of the ITD length for OS prediction was 0.504, and no differences were found when applying any of the thresholds for OS, RFS or CR rate. Only four out of 106 patients had ITD IS in the TKD1 domain. Our results, alongside previous publications, confirm that FLT3-ITD length lacks prognostic value and clinical applicability.

Understanding the Hedgehog Signaling Pathway in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Stem Cells: A Necessary Step toward a Cure.

A better understanding of how signaling pathways govern cell fate is fundamental to advances in cancer development and treatment. The initialization of different tumors and their maintenance are caused by the deregulation of different signaling pathways and cancer stem cell maintenance. Quiescent stem cells are resistant to conventional chemotherapeutic treatments and, consequently, are responsible for disease relapse. In this review we focus on the conserved Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway which is involved in regulating the cell cycle of hematopoietic and leukemic stem cells. Thus, we examine the role of the Hh signaling pathway in normal and leukemic stem cells and dissect its role in acute myeloid leukemia. We explain not only the connection between illness and the signaling pathway but also evaluate innovative therapeutic approaches that could affect the outcome of patients with acute myeloid leukemia. We found that many aspects of the Hedgehog signaling pathway remain unknown. The role of Hh has only been proven in embryo and hematopoietic stem cell development. Further research is needed to elucidate the role of GLI transcription factors for therapeutic targeting. Glasdegib, an SMO inhibitor, has shown clinical activity in acute myeloid leukemia; however, its mechanism of action is not clear.

Development and validation of a predictive model of in-hospital mortality in COVID-19 patients.

We retrospectively evaluated 2879 hospitalized COVID-19 patients from four hospitals to evaluate the ability of demographic data, medical history, and on-admission laboratory parameters to predict in-hospital mortality. Association of previously published risk factors (age, gender, arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, smoking habit, obesity, renal failure, cardiovascular/ pulmonary diseases, serum ferritin, lymphocyte count, APTT, PT, fibrinogen, D-dimer, and platelet count) with death was tested by a multivariate logistic regression, and a predictive model was created, with further validation in an independent sample. A total of 2070 hospitalized COVID-19 patients were finally included in the multivariable analysis. Age 61-70 years (p<0.001; OR: 7.69; 95%CI: 2.93 to 20.14), age 71-80 years (p<0.001; OR: 14.99; 95%CI: 5.88 to 38.22), age >80 years (p<0.001; OR: 36.78; 95%CI: 14.42 to 93.85), male gender (p<0.001; OR: 1.84; 95%CI: 1.31 to 2.58), D-dimer levels >2 ULN (p = 0.003; OR: 1.79; 95%CI: 1.22 to 2.62), and prolonged PT (p<0.001; OR: 2.18; 95%CI: 1.49 to 3.18) were independently associated with increased in-hospital mortality. A predictive model performed with these parameters showed an AUC of 0.81 in the development cohort (n = 1270) [sensitivity of 95.83%, specificity of 41.46%, negative predictive value of 98.01%, and positive predictive value of 24.85%]. These results were then validated in an independent data sample (n = 800). Our predictive model of in-hospital mortality of COVID-19 patients has been developed, calibrated and validated. The model (MRS-COVID) included age, male gender, and on-admission coagulopathy markers as positively correlated factors with fatal outcome.

Comparison of Droplet Digital PCR versus qPCR Measurements on the International Scale for the Molecular Monitoring of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Patients.

BACKGROUND: BCR-ABL1/ABL1 p210 measurement by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) is used worldwide to monitor the molecular response in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients. Droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) seems to show a greater sensitivity than qPCR, probably due to the high number of replicates analyzed in ddPCR for the comparison. Additionally, in a recently published comparison, ddPCR measurements were not adequately transformed into International Scale (IS). METHOD: We have analyzed 50 CML patients and ten non-CML donors in parallel by qPCR and ddPCR. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study comparing both techniques under similar conditions, with BCR-ABL1/ABL1 measurements performed via both techniques transformed into IS. RESULTS: Qualitative and quantitative comparisons showed excellent results. The qualitative correlation showed a Kappa index of 0.94 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.90-0.98) (P < 0.001). In the quantitative comparison, the absolute intra-class correlation coefficient was 0.868 (95% CI 0.734-0.937; P < 0.001), and Lin's concordance correlation coefficient was 0.863. The Passing-Bablock test indicated a slight proportional difference between qPCR and ddPCR. A quantitative and qualitative subanalysis including 40 patients with a molecular response of 3.0 or deeper showed similar results in every test. In addition, the proportional difference in the Passing-Bablock test disappeared. There were no differences in the sensitivity for BCR-ABL1 detection between qPCR and ddPCR (McNemar test, P = 0.5). CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, our results show very good quantitative and qualitative correlations between BCR-ABL1/ABL1 p210 results obtained by qPCR and by ddPCR and confirm previous scarce data regarding the lack of an increase in sensitivity of ddPCR over qPCR in this setting.