Regulatory considerations for clinical development of cancer vaccines.

Cancer vaccines are aimed at stimulating an immune response to tumor tissue. There is a high level of clinical activity in this rapidly advancing field with over 1,400 trials registered on Clincaltrials.gov.

Dark immunofluorescence: correlation with serum immunoglobulin abnormalities.

Occasional serum samples (<0.5%) tested by indirect immunofluorescence showed less fluorescence than did negative-control serum. A retrospective review of these patients' serum immunoglobulins revealed a high percentage of abnormalities (71%, versus 22% of controls).

Differential expression of CD 180 and IgM by B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia cells using mutated and unmutated immunoglobulin VH genes.

We have studied the surface expression of the Toll-like receptor family member CD 180 on cells from 78 patients with B-chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (B-CLL). B-CLL cells had variable levels of CD 180 expression, but this was always less than that expressed by normal blood B cells and was stable for 24 months. Significantly higher levels of CD 180 were expressed by B-CLL cells with mutated IGVH genes compared with those using unmutated IGVH genes.

Adjunctive high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin treatment for resistant atopic dermatitis: efficacy and effects on intracellular cytokine levels and CD4 counts.

Although atopic dermatitis generally responds to topical therapy, small numbers of patients have severe resistant disease despite second-line therapies. High-dose intravenous immunoglobulin has been suggested to be of benefit in a small number of reports. We have conducted an open, single-centre study of adjunctive high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin (Flebogamma 5%).

V(H) gene usage differs in germline and mutated B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Background And Objectives: Given the prognostic relevance that the identification of mutated and germline subgroups of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) has recently acquired we set out to analyze in depth individual VH gene usage rearrangements in patients with mutated and germline CLL.

Design And Methods: Using sequence analysis of FR1/JH polymerase chain reaction products, the VH immunoglobulin gene configuration was analyzed in 159 rearranged IgH alleles from 154 CLL patients. Having previously identified a spatial relationship between VH gene usage and JH proximity in patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), we performed linear and Poisson regression analysis on patients with germline and mutated CLL against VH rearrangements from normal peripheral blood.