Azacitidine for Treating Acute Myeloid Leukaemia with More Than 30 % Bone Marrow Blasts: An Evidence Review Group Perspective of a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Single Technology Appraisal.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) invited the manufacturer of azacitidine (Celgene) to submit evidence for the clinical and cost effectiveness of this drug for the treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia with more than 30 % bone marrow blasts in adults who are not eligible for haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, as part of the NICE's Single Technology Appraisal process. The Peninsula Technology Assessment Group was commissioned to act as the Evidence Review Group (ERG). The ERG produced a critical review of the evidence contained within the company's submission to NICE.

Investigating the targets of MIR-15a and MIR-16-1 in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, noncoding RNAs that regulate the expression of multiple target genes. Deregulation of miRNAs is common in human tumorigenesis. The miRNAs, MIR-15a/16-1, at chromosome band 13q14 are down-regulated in the majority of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).

Evaluation of 13q14 status in multiple myeloma by digital single nucleotide polymorphism technology.

Chromosome 13q deletions are common in multiple myeloma and other cancers, demonstrating the importance of this region in tumorigenesis. We used a novel single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based technique, digital SNP (dSNP), to identify loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at chromosome 13q in paraffin-embedded bone marrow biopsies from 22 patients with multiple myeloma. We analyzed heterozygous SNPs at 13q for the presence of allelic imbalances and examined the results by sequential probability ratio analysis.

Evaluation of 13q14 status in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia using single nucleotide polymorphism-based techniques.

Deletions of chromosome 13q14 are common in chronic lymphocytic leukemia and other cancers, demonstrating the importance of this region in tumorigenesis. We report the use of two single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based techniques to determine 13q loss of heterozygosity (LOH) status in 15 patients with CLL: (i) digital SNP (dSNP), where analysis of heterozygous SNPs detects allelic imbalances, and (ii) DNA sequencing, where LOH is identified by comparison of allelic peak heights in normal and neoplastic cells. The SNP-based techniques were compared with established molecular techniques, fluorescence in situ hybridization and multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification, to determine their utility and relative sensitivity.