Artificial intelligence and the blood film: Performance of the MC-80 digital morphology analyzer in samples with neoplastic and reactive cell types.

Introduction: Implementing artificial intelligence-based instruments in hematology laboratories requires evidence of efficiency in classifying pathological cells. In two-Universities, we assessed the performance of the Mindray® MC-80 for hematology patients with frequent leukemic and dysplastic cells.

Methods: The Mindray MC-80® locates and pre-classifies cells in blood films.

Hematopoiesis and immune reconstitution after CD19 directed chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CAR-T): A comprehensive review on incidence, risk factors and current management.

Impaired function of hematopoiesis after treatment with chimeric antigen T-cells (CAR-T) is a frequent finding and can interest a wide range of patients, regardless of age and underlying disease. Trilinear cytopenias, as well as hypogammaglobulinemia, B-cell aplasia, and T-cell impairment, can severely affect the infectious risk of CAR-T recipients, as well as their quality of life. In this review, we provide an overview of defects in hematopoiesis after CAR-T, starting with a summary of different definitions and thresholds.

Peripheral Blood Allogeneic Stem Cell Mobilization: Can We Predict a Suboptimal Mobilization?

Allogeneic peripheral blood stem cells mobilization is now the basis of most stem cell transplants. In a very limited number of cases, mobilization is suboptimal leading to further collection procedures, to suboptimal cell doses infusion with delayed engraftment time, increased risks of transplant procedure and of related costs. To date we have no recognized and shared criteria for early estimating the probability of poor mobilization in healthy donors.

Eltrombopag for Low-Risk Myelodysplastic Syndromes With Thrombocytopenia: Interim Results of a Phase II, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial (EQOL-MDS).

Purpose: In myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), severe thrombocytopenia is associated with poor prognosis. This multicenter trial presents the second-part long-term efficacy and safety results of eltrombopag in patients with low-risk MDS and severe thrombocytopenia.

Methods: In this single-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, phase-II trial of adult patients with International Prognostic Scoring System low- or intermediate-1-risk MDS, patients with a stable platelet (PLT) count (<30 × 10/mm) received eltrombopag or placebo until disease progression.

Decitabine Versus Hydroxyurea for Advanced Proliferative Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukemia: Results of a Randomized Phase III Trial Within the EMSCO Network.

Purpose: Hydroxyurea (HY) is a reference treatment of advanced myeloproliferative neoplasms. We conducted a randomized phase III trial comparing decitabine (DAC) and HY in advanced myeloproliferative chronic myelomonocytic leukemias (CMML).

Patients And Methods: Newly diagnosed myeloproliferative CMML patients with advanced disease were randomly assigned 1:1 to intravenous DAC (20 mg/m/d days 1-5) or HY (1-4 g/d) in 28-day cycles.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): Focus on peripheral blood cell morphology.

Numerous studies have shown peculiar morphological anomalies in COVID-19 patients' smears. We searched all the peer-reviewed scientific publications that explicitly reference the cytomorphological alterations on peripheral blood smears of patients with COVID-19. We extracted data from sixty-five publications (case reports, patient group studies, reviews, and erythrocyte morphology studies).

Digital morphology in hematology diagnosis and education: The experience of the European LeukemiaNet WP10.

Hematological diagnostics is based on increasingly precise techniques of cellular and molecular analysis. The correct interpretation of the blood and bone marrow smears observed under an optical microscope still represents a cornerstone. Precise quantitative and qualitative cytomorphological criteria have recently been codified by up-to-date guidelines for diagnosing hematopoietic neoplasms.

Successful "on-demand" plerixafor for autologous peripheral blood stem-cells transplantation for relapsed/refractory germ cell tumors.

Background: Germ cell tumors represent, among solid cancers, a potentially curable disease even if up to 20% to 30% of patients (pts) relapse after first-line treatment especially considering intermediate and poor prognosis groups. In this scenario, patients are candidates for high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem-cells transplantation as second-line treatment even though stem-cells mobilization potential can be affected by several cycles and regimens of chemotherapy. To date, plerixafor is authorized in poor mobilizer adult pts diagnosed with lymphoma or multiple myeloma and in pediatric solid tumors or lymphoma.

2021 update of the 2012 ICSH Recommendations for identification, diagnostic value, and quantitation of schistocytes: Impact and revisions.

In 2012, the International Council for Standardization in Hematology (ICSH) published recommendations for the identification, quantitation, and diagnostic value of schistocytes. In the present review, the impact of these recommendations is evaluated. This work is based on citations in peer-reviewed papers published since 2012.

Cytomorphology of normal, reactive, dysmorphic, and dysplastic megakaryocytes in bone marrow aspirates.

This paper aims to emphasize the importance of applying international consensus guidelines to detect qualitative and quantitative abnormalities of megakaryocytes on smears of bone marrow aspirates (BMA) for a shared and harmonized diagnostic path between different laboratories. Careful evaluation of megakaryocytes on BMA smears represents a cornerstone in the diagnosis of most clonal and nonclonal hematological diseases. Images associated with the detailed morphologic description of normal, reactive, abnormal, and dysplastic megakaryocytes are also reported together with examples of similar cells that, if not promptly identified, can lead to a morphological misdiagnosis.

How I investigate difficult cells at the optical microscope.

Blood cell morphological identification on the peripheral blood and bone marrow films remains a cornerstone for the diagnosis of hematological neoplasms to be integrated with immunophenotyping, molecular genetics, and histopathology. Although standardization is still far from being achieved, with high interobserver variability, in recent years, several classification approaches, from the 1976 FAB to the 2016 WHO classification, have provided hematologists with detailed morphological descriptions for a large number of diseases. Counting blasts and detecting dysplastic specimens are two cornerstones of morphological diagnosis.

The hematology laboratory's response to the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound worldwide impact on the laboratory hematology community. Nevertheless, the pace of COVID-19 hematology-related research has continued to accelerate and has established the role of laboratory hematology data for many purposes including disease prognosis and outcome. The purpose of this scoping review was to assess the current state of COVID-19 laboratory hematology research.

Inline and offline extracorporeal photopheresis: Device performance, cell yields and clinical response.

Background: Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) is an effective treatment for graft-vs-host-disease (GvHD). Photopheresis can be performed in offline or inline method. The first uses a conventional cell separator for collection of mononuclear-cells that are photoactivated by a separate device and manually reinfused; the second one involves a dedicated device performing the entire procedure (collection, photoactivation and reinfusion).

The role of eosinophil morphology in distinguishing between reactive eosinophilia and eosinophilia as a feature of a myeloid neoplasm.

Morphological features of eosinophils in patients with reactive eosinophilia (28 patients) and clonal eosinophilia (26 patients) have been compared with each other and with the eosinophil characteristics of healthy volunteers (three subjects) and of patients with the idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndrome (three patients). Morphological features, assessed in isolation from other haematological abnormalities, were found to have poor specificity for a myeloid neoplasm. The most useful feature was the presence of basophilic granules in mature eosinophils, which was associated particularly with acute myeloid leukaemia with inv(16).