Long-term survival of pancreatic cancer patients treated with multimodal therapy combined with WT1-targeted dendritic cell vaccines.

Background/aim: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) remains one of the most aggressive tumors with a dismally poor prognosis. Although surgical resection remains the only potentially curative treatment, most PDAs are not surgically resectable at diagnosis. Therefore, multimodal therapy is urgently needed to improve the long-term survival of PDA patients.

Influence of human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 coinfection on the development of hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with hepatitis C virus infection.

Background: Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) may worsen the clinical course of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The aim of this study was to investigate whether HTLV-1 coinfection influences the clinical characteristics of patients with HCV infection.

Methods: This retrospective study included 523 consecutive patients from January 2001 to December 2010 with chronic liver disease due to HCV infection, in whom serum anti-HTLV-1 antibodies were examined.

Serum prohepcidin levels are potential prognostic markers in patients with multiple myeloma.

Prohepcidin is the prohormone of hepcidin. Anemia is one of the main clinical features in patients with multiple myeloma (MM) and hepcidin may be associated with iron homeostasis in these patients. However, the clinical significance of prohepcidin is not fully understood.

Masked t(15;17) APL with the insertion of PML-RARalpha fusion gene in 4q21.

Most cases of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) are characterized by the reciprocal translocation t(15;17); however, several complex variant translocations have also been reported. Here we report complex cytogenetic abnormalities without t(15;17) assayed by the G-banding method in a 62-year-old woman with the typical morphology and clinical features of APL. Based on spectral karyotyping and FISH analyses, we confirm the insertion of a cryptic chromosomal segment containing the PML/RARalpha fusion gene.

A new cytogenetic abnormality, t(2;7)(q33;q36), in acute promyelocytic leukemia.

We report the case of a patient with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) carrying a novel chromosomal abnormality, t(2;7)(q33;q36). The 54-year-old woman was morphologically diagnosed with APL through bone marrow aspiration. The proportion of blast cells in bone marrow was 78%, including cells displaying Auer rods and faggot cells.

Adult T-cell leukemia in a liver transplant recipient that did not progress after onset of graft rejection.

A liver allograft recipient developed acute-type adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) during tacrolimus treatment, 2 years after undergoing transplantation for subacute fulminant hepatitis. Both donor and recipient were asymptomatic carriers of human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I), but the ATL cells originated from the recipient. Tacrolimus treatment was discontinued, and combination chemotherapy was administered.

Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma in a 21-year-old man.

Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) is malignancy of mature T cells that caused by infection with human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I). Leukemogenesis of ATL cells considered to involve a multistep oncogenic process, resulting in a very long latency period. But, we report here the case of a 21-year-old man having suffered from recurrent stomatititis who has already developed acute-type ATL.