Acanthamoeba Infection in a Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Recipient: Challenges in Diagnosis, Management, and Source Identification.

We report a case of Acanthamoeba infection in an HCT recipient with steroid-refractory GVHD. We highlight the multiple challenges that free-living ameba infections present to the clinician, the clinical laboratory, transplant infectious disease for review, hospital epidemiology if nosocomial transmission is considered, and public health officials, as exposure source identification can be a significant challenge. Transplant physicians should include Acanthamoeba infections in their differential diagnosis of a patient with skin, sinus, lung, and/or brain involvement.

Outcomes in hematopoetic cell transplantation in the setting of mold infections in patients with chronic granulomatous disease.

Chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) is a disorder of immunity characterized by phagocyte dysfunction. Mold infections in patients with CGD are often severe and disseminated. We present patient characteristics, microbiological data, and outcomes for 26 patients with CGD who received hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) or gene therapy-modified cells (GT) between 2008 and 2019, with proven fungal infection either before or during their transplant.

Infections and antimicrobial prophylaxis in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes.

Infectious complications are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Preventing infections could significantly improve both survival and quality of life. Unfortunately, both infections and antimicrobial prophylaxis in patients with MDS are incompletely assessed due to the heterogeneity of disorders included in each publication, changing definitions over time, and lack of standardized prophylaxis practices.

High-dose alemtuzumab and cyclosporine vs tacrolimus, methotrexate, and sirolimus for chronic graft-versus-host disease prevention.

Chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) remains a significant problem for patients after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). Although in vivo lymphodepletion for cGVHD prophylaxis has been explored in the myeloablative setting, its effects after reduced-intensity conditioning (RIC) are not well described. Patients (N = 83) with hematologic malignancies underwent targeted lymphodepletion chemotherapy followed by a RIC allo-HSCT using peripheral blood stem cells from unrelated donors.