Autologous bone marrow transplantation for high risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia: clinical relevance of ex vivo bone marrow purging with monoclonal antibodies and complement.

Herein we describe our experience with 75 consecutive autologous BM transplants for patients with high-risk ALL, with special attention to the clinical impact of BM purging. Fifty-two patients received purged BM using monoclonal antibody (MoAb) cocktails and complement, and 23 patients received untreated BM. The distribution of prognostic factors was similar in both groups.

Ogilvie's syndrome from disseminated varicella-zoster infection and infarcted celiac ganglia.

We report a patient who had refractory Hodgkin's disease and who received an autologous bone marrow transplantation and 8 months later developed abdominal pain associated with acute colonic dilation. The course of the patient was rapidly fatal due to a lobar pneumonia. Autopsy revealed signs of disseminated herpesvirus infection with marked hemorrhagic infarction of celiac sympathetic ganglia.

Aggressive natural killer cell leukaemia/lymphoma in two patients with lethal midline granuloma.

We report two patients with leukaemic proliferations of large granular lymphocytes. The immunophenotype study showed that the leukaemic cells were positive for CD2, CD38, CD56 and anti-HLA-DR monoclonal antibodies and negative for other T-cell (CD3, CD4, CD8) and B-cell markers (CD19, CD20 and surface immunoglobulins). The clinical course was acute and a diagnosis of aggressive natural killer cell leukaemia/lymphoma was made.

A single dose of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor modifies radiation-induced death in B6D2F1 mice.

Granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) stimulates the proliferation of progenitor cells committed to myeloid differentiation. In animal models, G-CSF is able to stimulate granulocyte recovery and promote survival after lethal or sublethal irradiation when administered as daily injections, suggesting an influence on the residual hematopoietic primitive precursors surviving irradiation. In this study, we clearly demonstrate that a single dose of G-CSF (1 mg/kg) administered to B6D2F1 mice 2 hours after a lethal dose 95/30 irradiation achieves a 78% survival at day +30 after irradiation.