Telemedicine: a Primer.

Purpose Of Review: Due to rapid advancements in quality of real-time, interactive, audio-visual, and digital technologies as well as impressive gains in internet speed and capacity, medicine delivered over distance is happening faster than many healthcare providers and leaders can grasp.

Recent Findings: Depending on which market report you ascribe to, industry projections for the global compounded annual growth rate of telemedicine are between 13 and 27%, with valuation growing to over 20 billion US dollars in the next several years. The Mayo Clinic has reworked its entire telemedicine interest to a model with centralized operations, one virtual technology platform, standardized training, and connectedness for all of its locations.

Unique association of myeloid neoplasm with eosinophilia and abnormalities of PDGFRA with TTP.

Myeloid neoplasm with eosinophilia and abnormalities of Alpha type platelet derived growth factor receptor (PDGFRA) is a type of hypereosinophilic syndrome characterized by multiorgan damage due to eosinophilia. Its association with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) has rarely been reported. We describe here a case report of a female in whom TTP presented as one of the earlier manifestations of myeloproliferative HES with rearrangement of PDGFRA.

Ocular surface squamous neoplasia in patients with HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa.

Purpose Of Review: Ocular surface squamous neoplasia (OSSN) in sub-Saharan countries is an aggressive tumor that affects younger patients and appears to be increasing in incidence. There are data to suggest the association of this disease with solar radiation exposure, HIV, and human papilloma virus (HPV). This trend possibly reflects the association of the high incidence of HIV, concomitant high incidence of exposure to HPV, and the solar radiation exposure that people in this region of the world receive.

Are backup BM harvests worthwhile in unrelated donor allogeneic transplants?

The Cleveland Clinic blood and marrow transplant program has routinely performed 'backup' autologous harvests in unrelated recipients with hematological malignancies in remission, lymphoma without marrow involvement and CML in chronic phase. We reviewed all adult or cord unrelated donor (URD) transplants performed from January 1995 through September 2008 to evaluate the value of this procedure. Of 130 patients who had backup harvests, 15 (11%) had their backup harvests re-infused, all for graft failure.