Survey on the effectiveness of telephone-based communication with relatives of hospitalized cancer patients in COVID-19 era in Italy.

Objective: No-visitor policies adopted to prevent coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) spread in hospital wards have deeply impacted communication with patients and their relatives. Whereas in pre-COVID-19 era family-clinician meetings were held in person, during the pandemic interactions often took place over the phone, frequently causing feelings of uncertainty and distress to the close ones at home. The goal of this study was to assess and improve the effectiveness of structured telephone-based communication with hospitalized onco-hematological patients' relatives in COVID-19 era.

-Mutated Myeloid Neoplasms with <20% Blasts: A Really Distinct Clinico-Pathologic Entity?

Nucleophosmin () gene mutations rarely occur in non-acute myeloid neoplasms (MNs) with <20% blasts. Among nearly 10,000 patients investigated so far, molecular analyses documented mutations in around 2% of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) cases, mainly belonging to MDS with excess of blasts, and 3% of myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasm (MDS/MPN) cases, prevalently classified as chronic myelomonocytic leukemia. These uncommon malignancies are associated with an aggressive clinical course, relatively rapid progression to overt acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and poor survival outcomes, raising controversies on their classification as distinct clinico-pathologic entities.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia in a nine-year-old girl with isodicentric chromosome 15 syndrome.

Isodicentric chromosome 15, also called idic(15), is a rare chromosomal abnormality resulting from inverted duplication of proximal 15q. It is associated with specific clinical findings such as early central hypotonia, developmental delay, cognitive dysfunction, autism spectrum disorders, and seizure. Herein we describe a case of a girl with idic(15) syndrome who developed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) at the age of 9 years.