Treatment of Burkitt lymphoma in equatorial Africa using a simple three-drug combination followed by a salvage regimen for patients with persistent or recurrent disease.

Prior to the introduction of the International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research (INCTR) protocol INCTR 03-06, survival of patients with Burkitt lymphoma at four tertiary care centres in equatorial Africa was probably no more than 10-20%. The results reported here for 356 patients have demonstrated marked improvement in survival through the use of a uniform treatment protocol consisting of cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, vincristine, and intrathecal therapy, and the introduction of non-cross resistant second-line (salvage) therapy, consisting of ifosfamide, mesna, etoposide and cytarabine, when patients failed to achieve a complete response to first-line therapy or relapsed early. Overall survival rates of 67% and 62% were observed at 1 and 2 years (relapse is rare after 1 year of remission).

Lymphomas in sub-Saharan Africa--what can we learn and how can we help in improving diagnosis, managing patients and fostering translational research?

Approximately 30 000 cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) occur in the equatorial belt of Africa each year. Apart from the fact that Burkitt lymphoma (BL) is very common among children and adolescents in Africa and that an epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is currently ongoing in this part of the world, very little is known about lymphomas in Africa. This review provides information regarding the current infrastructure for diagnostics in sub-Saharan Africa.

Potential predictive patterns of minimal residual disease detected by immunohistochemistry on bone marrow biopsy specimens during a long-term follow-up in patients treated with cladribine for hairy cell leukemia.

Context: Minimal residual disease (MRD) in patients treated for hairy cell (HC) leukemia as assessed by immunohistochemistry has not been included routinely in evaluation of treatment results.

Objective: To assess the presence of persistent HCs after treatment, as detected by immunohistochemistry, and to evaluate the correlation between the level of MRD and clinical outcome.

Design: Percentages of DBA.

Epstein-Barr virus load correlating with clinical manifestation and treatment response in a patient with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma.

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated lymphoma may arise secondary to angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL). The prognosis is poor despite chemotherapy and experimental therapies. We report on a 40-year-old woman with AITL without obvious immunodeficiency in which EBV-associated lymphoma developed.

Diagnostic telepathology: long-term experience of a single institution.

Objectives: The paper reviews the development of the application of telepathology in a department of surgical pathology between 1991 and 2003. The goal of the efforts during this time was to give up the concept of programming a single application, available only between two fixed workstations with sophisticated devices and special software, and to find the virtual "largest common denominator" for implementing as many different applications as possible with the same basic system.

Methods: A new telepathology system was designed as a client-server system with a relational database at its centre.