Extracorporeal light chain elimination: high cut-off (HCO) hemodialysis parallel to chemotherapy allows for a high proportion of renal recovery in multiple myeloma patients with dialysis-dependent acute kidney injury.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is frequent in multiple myeloma (MM) patients and strongly affects prognosis, with particularly poor outcomes in patients requiring hemodialysis. Introduction of the novel therapeutic agents to MM therapy has improved myeloma response and renal outcome. This case series reviews the efficacy of combined systemic and extracorporeal therapy to further optimize time to light chain (serum-free light chain (sFLC)) reduction and renal recovery in MM patients with dialysis-dependent AKI (n = 19).

Hantavirus infection: a neglected diagnosis in thrombocytopenia and fever?

Thrombocytopenia, fever, and acute renal failure are characteristic features of nephropathia epidemica, the predominant hantavirus infection in Europe. However, clinical presentation and blood cell counts may point to other disorders, such as a hematologic disease, particularly when impairment of renal function is not evident. This differential diagnosis often results in further extensive and unnecessary testing.

The benefit of using whole-body, low-dose, nonenhanced, multidetector computed tomography for follow-up and therapy response monitoring in patients with multiple myeloma.

Background: The objectives of this study were to assess the status and clinical course of patients with multiple myeloma based on the direct visualization of changes in medullary, extramedullary, and focal osteolytic myeloma involvement by using whole-body, low-dose, multidetector computed tomography (WBLD-MDCT) and to compare those results with an assessment based on conventional hematologic parameters.

Methods: Between June 2002 and December 2005, WBLD-MDCT scans were obtained from 131 consecutive multiple myeloma patients with or without therapy, resulting in a total of 439 examinations. The number and size of osteolytic lesions and the number, size, and density of focal or diffuse medullary and extramedullary lesions were analyzed.

Interferon-alpha, but not the ABL-kinase inhibitor imatinib (STI571), induces expression of myeloblastin and a specific T-cell response in chronic myeloid leukemia.

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a clonal disease of hematopoietic stem cells caused by a reciprocal translocation of the long arms of chromosomes 9 and 22. In human leukocyte antigen A*0201(+) (HLA-A*0201(+)) individuals, response after interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) was shown to be associated with the emergence of CML-specific cytotoxic T cells that recognize PR-1, a myeloblastin (MBN)-derived nonapeptide. In contrast, imatinib potently induces remissions from CML by specific inhibition of the ABL tyrosine kinase.