Efficacy of bendamustine in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia: results of a phase I/II study of the German CLL Study Group.

Background And Objectives: Although bendamustine has been used for more than 30 years in the treatment of lymphoma, little is known about the optimal dosing schedule in relapsed or refractory B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Various dose and treatment schedules have been used empirically, and several phase II studies have shown impressive efficacy. To determine the maximal tolerated dose, dose-limiting toxicity and the optimal therapeutic dose of bendamustine for further phase III clinical trials the GCLLSG designed a phase I/II study for pre-treated CLL patients.

Ulcerative colitis in a patient with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome.

A 30-year-old man with underlying Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, which is a rare X-linked congenital immunodeficiency syndrome characterized by recurrent infections, thrombopenia, eczema and hematopoietic malignancies, presented with bloody diarrhea. Endoscopic and histological evaluation was compatible with ulcerative colitis. Congenital immune defects are paralleled by enterocolitis mimicking inflammatory bowel disease in a substantial number of patients.

Microsatellite instability-a useful diagnostic tool to select patients at high risk for hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer: a study in different groups of patients with colorectal cancer.

Background: Clinical diagnosis of hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) is based on a typical family history. As molecular genetic testing is predominantly restricted to these families, gene carriers not meeting the clinical criteria may be missed.

Aims: To examine the value of microsatellite instability (MSI) as a tool to increase the likelihood for uncovering a mismatch repair germline mutation in patients with colorectal cancer and to identify a genotype-phenotype relation in families with verified mutations.

Muir-Torre phenotype has a frequency of DNA mismatch-repair-gene mutations similar to that in hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer families defined by the Amsterdam criteria.

Muir-Torre syndrome (MTS) is an autosomal dominant disease defined by the coincidence of at least one sebaceous skin tumor and one internal malignancy. About half of MTS patients are affected by colorectal cancer. In a subgroup of MTS patients the disease has an underlying DNA mismatch-repair (MMR) defect and thus is allelic to hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC).

Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer: causative role of a germline missense mutation in the hMLH1 gene confirmed by the independent occurrence of the same somatic mutation in tumour tissue.

Evaluation of the causative role of germline mutations in DNA mismatch repair genes in hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) families can be difficult. Whereas nonsense, frameshift or splice-site mutations are presumed to lead to dysfunctional gene products and thus are generally considered to be causative, the evaluation of missense mutations often remains uncertain. We observed a novel germline mutation in the hMLH1 gene (His-->Pro at codon 329) in an HNPCC family.