Long-term maintenance of the mucosal healing induced by azacitidine therapy in a patient with intestinal Behçet's-like disease accompanied with myelodysplastic syndrome involving trisomy 8.

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDSs) are a group of myeloid neoplasms characterized by blood cell deformation and dysfunction, and MDS with trisomy 8 is closely linked with intestinal Behçet's-like diseases. Intestinal Behçet's-like disease is refractory to conventional therapies, including prednisolone, immunomodulators, and anti-tumor necrosis factor α agents. Here, we describe a 56-year-old woman with intestinal Behçet's-like disease ascribed to MDS with trisomy 8 who had multiple intractable intestinal ulcers.

Multicenter phase II clinical trial of nilotinib for patients with imatinib-resistant or -intolerant chronic myeloid leukemia from the East Japan CML study group evaluation of molecular response and the efficacy and safety of nilotinib.

Background: Nilotinib is a second-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor that exhibits significant efficacy as first- or second-line treatment in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). We conducted a multicenter Phase II Clinical Trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of nilotinib among Japanese patients with imatinib-resistant or -intolerant CML-chronic phase (CP) or accelerated phase (AP).

Results: We analyzed 49 patients (33 imatinib-resistant and 16 imatinib-intolerant) treated with nilotinib 400 mg twice daily.

[Long-term complete remission after single therapy with gemtuzumab ozogamicin for refractory AML in an elderly patient].

Gemtuzumab ozogamicin (GO) is a humanized anti-CD33 monoclonal antibody conjugated to calicheamicin, that is rapidly internalized after binding to CD33. This is followed by intracellular release of calicheamicin, which induces double-stranded DNA breaks, cell cycle arrest, and apoptosis. So GO is a more selective agent for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), because the CD33 antigen is expressed on AML, while it is not expressed on normal hematopoietic stem cells and nonhematopoietic tissues.

[Antiapoptotic functions of the retrovirally transferred API2-MALT1 gene].

t(11 ; 18)(q21 ; q21) is a specific chromosomal aberration in mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma, and produces chimeric transcript Apoptosis Inhibitor 2 (API2)-MALT1. Although it is known that API2 has an antiapoptotic effect, it is still unclear whether this also applies to API2-MALT1. To investigate its effects against various apoptotic stimuli, API2-MALT1 was expressed by means of retroviral infection on the epithelial cell line HeLa and the murine Pro-B cell line Ba/F3.