The stock of therapeutic weapons available in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) has been progressively grown over the years, with improving both survival and patients' clinical outcome: notwithstanding advances in the knowledge of mCRC biology, as well as advances in treatment, fluoropyrimidine antimetabolite drugs have been for 30 years the mainstay of chemotherapy protocols for this malignancy. 5-Fluorouracil (5FU) seems to act differently depending on administration method: elastomer-mediated continuous infusion better inhibits Thymidylate Synthase (TS), an enzyme playing a pivotal role in DNA synthetic pathway. TS overexpression is an acknowledged poor prognosis predicting factor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Cladribine tablets were recently approved for the treatment of Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS), reducing B cells and T cells, followed by reconstitution of the adaptive immune system, with transient and mild effects on the innate one. Cladribine is also the standard first-line and subsequent treatment for Hairy-Cell Leukemia (HCL), frequently complicated by neutropenic fever. Recombinant human Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor (G-CSF; Filgrastim) has been proved to reduce neutropenia by increasing neutrophil count.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHLA gene expression has an important role in the autoimmune disease predisposition. We investigated the mRNA expression profile of the risk alleles HLA-DRB1*15 and HLA-DRB1*13 in a cohort of subjects both multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and healthy controls. Moreover, we explored the expression of the allele HLA-DRB1*11 that is very frequent in our cohort from southern Italy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlemtuzumab is a monoclonal antibody targeting the CD52 antigen used in the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). CD52 is expressed by lymphocytes and monocytes but less by neutrophils and not by platelets. We present a case of a 38-year-old woman with RRMS who developed early neutropenia with thrombocytopenia after alemtuzumab infusion.
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