Ansell, Stephen M.

SummaryIn this review, the key issues that pertain to Waldenström disease are discussed in a concise question‐and‐answer format. Diagnosis, prognosis, and indications for state‐of‐the‐art therapy are updated. Current therapies presented at the 7th International Workshop for Waldenström Macroglobulinaemia are included.

Day 100 prognostic factors of postautologous peripheral blood hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (APBHSCT) to predict clinical outcome in classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) patients have not been evaluated. Thus, we studied if the day 100 peripheral blood absolute lymphocyte/monocyte ratio (Day 100 ALC/AMC) affects clinical outcomes by landmark analysis from day 100 post-APBHSCT. Only cHL patients achieving a complete remission at day 100 post-APBHSCT were studied. From 2000 to 2010, 131 cHL consecutive patients qualified for the study. The median followup from day 100 was 4.1 years (range: 0.2–12.3 years). Patients with a Day 100 ALC/AMC ≥ 1.3 experienced superior overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) compared with Day 100 ALC/AMC < 1.3 (from day 100: OS, median not reached versus 2.8 years; 5 years OS rates of 93% (95% CI, 83%–97%) versus 35% (95% CI, 19%–51%), resp.,P<0.0001; from day 100: PFS, median not reached versus 1.2 years; 5 years PFS rates of 79% (95% CI, 69%–86%) versus 27% (95% CI, 14%–45%), resp.,P<0.0001). Day ALC/AMC ratio was an independent predictor for OS and PFS. Thus, Day 100 ALC/AMC ratio is a simple biomarker that can help to assess clinical outcomes from day 100 post-APBHSCT in cHL patients.

Radioimmunotherapy (RIT) for relapsed indolent non‐Hodgkin lymphoma produces overall response rates (ORR) of 80% with mostly partial remissions. Synthetic CpG oligonucleotides change the phenotype of malignant B‐cells, are immunostimulatory, and can produce responses when injected intratumorally and combined with conventional radiation. In this phase I trial, we tested systemic administration of both CpG and RIT. Eligible patients had biopsy‐proven previously treated CD20+ B‐cell NHL and met criteria for RIT. Patients received rituximab 250 mg/m2 days 1,8, and 15; 111In‐ibritumomab tiuxetan days 1, 8; CpG 7909 days 6, 13, 20, 27; and 0.4 mCi/kg of 90Y‐ibritumomab tiuxetan day 15. The doses of CpG 7909 tested were 0.08, 0.16, 0.32 (six patients each) and 0.48 mg/kg (12 patients) IV over 2 hr without dose limiting toxicity. The ORR was 93% (28/30) with 63% (19/30) complete remission (CR); median progression free survival of 42.7 months (95% CI 18‐NR); and median duration of response (DR) of 35 months (4.6–76+). Correlative studies demonstrated a decrease in IL10 and TNFα, and an increase in IL1β, in response to therapy. CpG 7909 at a dose of 0.48 mg/kg is safe with standard RIT and produces a high CR rate and long DR; these results warrant confirmation. Am. J. Hematol. 88:589–593, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

AbstractMany common genetic variants have been associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), but individual study results are often conflicting. To confirm the role of putative risk alleles in B-cell NHL etiology, we performed a validation genotyping study of 67 candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms within InterLymph, a large international consortium of NHL case-control studies. A meta-analysis was performed on data from 5633 B-cell NHL cases and 7034 controls from 8 InterLymph studies. rs3789068 in the proapoptotic BCL2L11 gene was associated with an increased risk for B-cell NHL (odds ratio = 1.21, P random = 2.21 × 10−11), with similar risk estimates for common B-cell subtypes. PRRC2A rs3132453 in the HLA complex class III region conferred a reduced risk of B-cell NHL (odds ratio = 0.68, P random = 1.07 × 10−9) and was likewise evident for common B-cell subtypes. These results are consistent with the known biology of NHL and provide insights into shared pathogenic components, including apoptosis and immune regulation, for the major B-cell lymphoma subtypes.