1,721,133 research outputs found

    "Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO) State of the Art Updates and Next Questions"-Treatment of ALL.

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    The outcome of adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) has substantially improved by adopting pediatric-inspired regimens, and approximately half of the patients are nowadays cured. The evaluation of minimal residual disease currently represents the most important prognostic indicator, which drives treatment algorithms, which include allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) allocation. Indeed, for high-risk patients, allo-SCT should be pursued as soon as possible, whereas in standard-risk patients this procedure should be avoided also in light of related toxicity and because there are no significant benefits. Furthermore, better characterization of the molecular genetic events can drive therapeutic decisions: a historical example in this respect is represented by the use of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in Philadelphia chromosome-positive ALL; in the upcoming future, TKIs might be used also in other subgroups, such as breakpoint cluster region/Abelson 1-like cases and others with deregulated tyrosine kinases. Finally, the greatest progress is currently achieved with new immunotherapies targeting frequently expressed surface antigens in ALL. It is also a new chance for elderly ALL patients, so far spared from intensive chemotherapy and allo-SCT. These targeted therapies will substantially change this treatment algorithm and the great challenge is to find optimal sequence of the extended therapy options in an individual patient

    Lymphoblastic lymphoma

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    Lymphoblastic lymphoma (LBL) is a neoplasm of immature B cells committed to the B-(B-LBL) or T-cell lineage (T-LBL) that accounts for approximately 2% of all lymphomas. From a histopathological point of view, blasts may be encountered in tissue biopsy and/or bone marrow (BM). In tissue sections, LBL is generally characterized by a diffuse or, as in lymph nodes and less commonly, paracortical pattern. Although histological features are usually sufficient to distinguish lymphoblastic from mature B- or T-cell neoplasms, a differential diagnosis with blastoid variant of mantle cell lymphoma, Burkitt lymphoma or myeloid leukemia may arise in some cases. Of greater importance is the characterization of immunophenotype by flow cytometry. In B-LBL, tumour cells are virtually always positive for B cell markers CD 19, CD79a and CD22. They are positive for CD 10, CD 24, PAX5, and TdT in most cases, while the expression of CD20 and the lineage independent stem cell antigen CD34 is variable and CD45 may be absent. Surface immunoglobulin is usually absent. In T-LBL, neoplastic cells are usually TdT positive and variably express CD1a, CD2, CD3, CD4, CD5, CD7 and CD8. The only reliable lineage-specific is surface CD3. Most B-LBL have clonal rearrangements of the Ig heavy chain or less frequently of light chain genes. T-cell receptor gamma or beta chain gene rearrangements may be seen in a significant number of cases, but rearrangements are not helpful for lineage assignment. LBL occurs more commonly in children than in adults, mostly in males. Although 80% of precursor B-cell neoplasms present as acute leukemias, with BM and peripheral blood (PB) involvement, a small proportion present with a mass lesion and have <25% blasts in the BM. Unlike precursor T-LBL, mediastinal masses and involvement of BM are rare, but lymph nodes and extranodal sites are more frequently involved. T-LBL patients, compared to those with B-LBL, show younger age, a higher rate of mediastinal tumours or BM involvement. Patients are usually males in their teens to twenties and present with lymphadenopathy in cervical, supraclavicular and axillary regions, or with a mediastinal mass. In most patients the mediastinal mass is anterior, bulky, and associated with pleural effusions, superior vena cava syndrome, tracheal obstruction, and pericardial effusions. They frequently present with advanced disease, B symptoms and elevated serum LDH levels. Abdominal involvement (liver and spleen) is unusual. LBL is highly aggressive, but frequently curable with current therapy. The prognosis in all age groups has dramatically improved with the use of intensive ALL-type chemotherapy regimes, with a disease-free survival of 73-90% in children and 45-72% in adults. Intensive intrathecal chemotherapy prophylaxis is required to reduce the CNS relapse incidence, while the role of prophylactic cranial irradiation is unclear. Consolidation mediastinal irradiation may decrease mediastinal relapse. Patients with adverse prognostic features should be considered for high-dose chemotherapy and SCT. Autologous SCT has been shown to produce similar good results as chemotherapy alone, and allogeneic SCT is likely to be a more appropriate option for patients who are beyond first remission or with more advanced disease. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Synergistic antiproliferative effect of recombinant interferon-gamma with recombinant interferon-alpha on chronic myelogenous leukemia hematopoietic progenitor cells (CFU-GEMM, CFU-Mk, BFU-E, and CFU-GM).

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    Recombinant interferons, alpha (rIFN-alpha) and gamma (rIFN-gamma), have been demonstrated to have significant antitumor activity as single agents in the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Due to their possible synergistic efficacy, a combination rIFN therapy in CML has been proposed. To establish a biologic basis for this, we have studied the suppressive effects of rIFN-alpha and rIFN-gamma on the in vitro growth of CML-derived progenitor cells (CFU-GEMM, CFU-Mk, BFU-E, CFU-GM), the optimal conditions for rIFN synergism, and the possible role of hematopoietic accessory cells (T-lymphocytes and monocytes-macrophages) in mediating rIFN-induced growth inhibition. When added to unseparated bone marrow cells, rIFN-alpha and rIFN-gamma significantly reduced colony formation, with 50% inhibition occurring at 71 and 186 U/mL for CFU-GEMM, 40 and 152 U/mL for CFU-Mk, 222 and 1,458 U/mL for BFU-E, and 119 and 442 U/mL for CFU-GM, respectively. A small amount of rIFN-gamma (5 U/mL) acted synergistically with increasing doses of rIFN-alpha, and the values of 50% inhibitory concentrations fell outside the lower limit (10 U/mL) used in our experiments. This synergy was evident even when rIFN-gamma was added 72 hours after the initiation of cultures; however, it was completely lost when the target cells were depleted of accessory cells. When a low dose of rIFN-alpha (5 U/mL) was added to rIFN-gamma, the 50% inhibitory concentration values were decreased up to tenfold. These studies (1) confirm that CML-derived hematopoietic progenitors are responsive to the suppressive activity of both rIFN-alpha and rIFN-gamma in vitro, (2) demonstrate that different mechanisms are responsible for the suppressive activity of the two rIFNs, and (3) characterize their synergistic interaction, providing a basis for future clinical trials aimed at investigating combination rIFN therapy in CML

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Author Index

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