Immune Monitoring during Therapy Reveals Activitory and Regulatory Immune Responses in High-Risk Neuroblastoma.

Despite intensive treatment, including consolidation immunotherapy (IT), prognosis of high-risk neuroblastoma (HR-NBL) is poor. Immune status of patients over the course of treatment, and thus immunological features potentially explaining therapy efficacy, are largely unknown. In this study, the dynamics of immune cell subsets and their function were explored in 25 HR-NBL patients at diagnosis, during induction chemotherapy, before high-dose chemotherapy, and during IT.

Monitoring Immune Responses in Neuroblastoma Patients during Therapy.

Neuroblastoma (NBL) is the most common extracranial solid tumor in childhood. Despite intense treatment, children with this high-risk disease have a poor prognosis. Immunotherapy showed a significant improvement in event-free survival in high-risk NBL patients receiving chimeric anti-GD2 in combination with cytokines and isotretinoin after myeloablative consolidation therapy.

A "No-Touch" Antibody-Staining Method of Adherent Cells for High-Throughput Flow Cytometry in 384-Well Microplate Format for Cell-Based Drug Library Screening.

In the last decade, screening compound libraries on live cells has become an important step in drug discovery. The abundance of compounds in these libraries requires effective high-throughput (HT) analyzing methods. Although current cell-based assay protocols are suitable for HT analyses, the analysis itself is often restrained to simple, singular outcomes.

Predictors for Autoimmune Cytopenias after Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation in Children.

Development of autoimmune cytopenia (AIC) after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is a serious complication requiring urgent intensification of immunosuppressive therapy. The pathophysiology and predictors of AIC are not completely understood. In this retrospective cohort analysis of 380 pediatric patients, we evaluated the incidence, outcomes, and related various variables, including immune reconstitution markers to AIC.

Quantification of total dinutuximab concentrations in neuroblastoma patients with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.

Neuroblastoma is one of the most commonly found solid tumors in children. The monoclonal antibody dinutuximab (DNX) targets the sialic acid-containing glycosphingolipid GD2 expressed on almost all neuroblastoma tumor cells and induces cell lysis. However, the expression of GD2 is not limited to tumor cells only, but is also present on central nerve tissue and peripheral nerve cells explaining dinutuximab toxicity.