Background: Given the widespread use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), newer immune related adverse events (irAEs) have come to light, including flare-ups of preexisting autoimmune disorders (AIDs) and delayed immune-related events. We aimed to identify the frequency and severity of new IRAEs, including AID flares in cancer patients treated with ICIs at our institution. We also studied the tolerability of ICIs upon rechallenge in patients with irAEs and hospital admissions due to irAEs in a community setting in rural Maine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMultiple sclerosis (MS) is a relapse remitting immune-mediated demyelinating neurological disorder that primarily affects women of childbearing age. In most patients, the hormonal changes during pregnancy are protective against MS relapses. When relapses do occur, treatment options are limited to use of intravenous steroids and plasmapheresis rescue therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVanishing bile duct syndrome (VBDS) is characterized by cholestasis and progressive destruction of the intrahepatic bile ducts (ductopenia). The current definition of ductopenia is the loss of interlobular bile ducts in more than 50% of portal tracts. Ductopenia is believed, at a molecular level, to result from the misbalance in cell regeneration and apoptosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe predisposition of monosomy 7 to diabetes insipidus (DI) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) led us to ask whether AML associated with monosomy 7 and DI will differ from AML associated with other karyotype aberrations and DI and whether the outcome of patients with AML and DI will differ from those without DI. We describe 2 patients from Roswell Park Cancer Institute and discuss 29 additional cases from the literature. AML with monosomy 7 and DI (n = 25) had a trend towards a lower complete remission (p = 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Treating the octogenarian and nonagenarian patients who have acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with intensive chemotherapy is controversial. Several models to predict outcome were proposed, including the use of a comorbidity index. However, it is unclear whether the Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) or the hematopoietic cell transplant comorbidity index (HCTCI) is more sensitive.
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