Publications by authors named "Rafael De la Camara"

Background: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a common complication following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) and in patients receiving novel hematological therapies. Its impact on morbidity and mortality necessitates effective management strategies. Despite recent advances in diagnostics and treatment, unresolved questions persist regarding monitoring and treatment, prompting the need for updated recommendations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) has established a continental registry over 30 years, currently housing data on over 700,000 patients and 800,000 transplants, which supports various research and benchmarking efforts in hematopoietic cell transplantation.
  • The introduction of CAR-T cell therapies, which could significantly impact blood and marrow transplantation practices, prompted EBMT to create a Cellular Therapy Form that registers CAR-T cell treated patients and collects detailed outcome data.
  • The EBMT Registry received approval from the European Medicines Agency in 2019 and now holds information on more than 9,000 patients treated with CAR-T cells, facilitating analyses and evaluations of these therapies' medical value within different contexts
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Both types of HCT are risky and complicated, but global collaboration among medical professionals has established it as a standard treatment for many serious blood-related illnesses, resulting in improved patient outcomes.
  • * Over 1.5 million HCT procedures were performed from 1957 to 2019, and this number continues to rise globally, supported by registries and international medical societies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study assessed COVID-19 mortality rates among patients receiving Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for blood cancers, comparing outcomes across three years (2020, 2021, 2022) during the Omicron period.
  • - There was a significant decline in COVID-19-related mortality: from 43.6% in 2020 to 7.5% in 2022, indicating improvement over time, with year of infection identified as a key predictor of survival.
  • - Although mortality decreased, CAR T-cell recipients still face a higher risk of complications compared to the general population, highlighting the need for ongoing monitoring and preventive measures during their treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In 2023, the EBMT Practice harmonization and Guidelines Committee partnered with the EBMT Infection Diseases Working Party (IDWP) to undertake the task of delivering best practice recommendations, aiming to harmonize by expert consensus, the already existing definitions and future epidemiological and clinical studies among centers of the EBMT network. To attain this objective, a group of experts in the field was convened. The workgroup identified and discussed some critical aspects in definitions of community-acquired respiratory viruses (CARV) and adenovirus (ADV) infections in recipient of hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The objective of the study was the analysis of clinical types, outcomes, and risk factors associated with the outcome of adenovirus (ADV) infection, in children and adults after allo-HCT. A total number of 2529 patients (43.9% children; 56.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Promoting access to and excellence in hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) by collecting and disseminating data on global HCT activities is one of the principal activities of the Worldwide Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, a non-governmental organization in working relations with the World Health Organization. HCT activities are recorded annually by member societies, national registries and individual centers including indication, donor type (allogeneic/autologous), donor match and stem cell source (bone marrow/peripheral blood stem cells/cord blood). In 2018, 1,768 HCT teams in 89 countries (6 World Health Organization regions) reported 93,105 (48,680 autologous and 44,425 allogeneic) HCT.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Nocardiosis is a serious infection that can occur after hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT), and this study aimed to identify its risk factors and the impact of certain preventive treatments.
  • A review of 64 cases of nocardiosis and 128 matched controls showed that factors like tacrolimus use, low lymphocyte counts, male sex, recent corticosteroid use, and previous CMV infections increased the risk of developing this infection.
  • Conversely, patients on trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole prophylaxis had a significantly lower risk of nocardiosis; however, those who did develop it had poorer survival rates compared to controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Listeriosis is rare after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT). Little is known about listeriosis in this population. In this retrospective international case-control study, we evaluated 41 listeriosis episodes occurring between 2000 and 2021 in HCT recipients (111 transplant centers in 30 countries) and assessed risk factors for listeriosis by comparisons with matched controls.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * A study involving 1439 acute leukemia patients showed that 6% had a prior history of IA before receiving alloSCT, resulting in higher non-relapse mortality (17.3% for those with IA compared to 11.2% for those without), and poorer outcomes in terms of relapse-free and overall survival rates.
  • * Despite the challenges linked to pre-SCT IA, over two-thirds of patients with this condition were alive one
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) is a life-threatening complication after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT). However, allo-HCT procedures have evolved toward older patients, unrelated donors, and reduced-intensity conditioning, possibly modifying the risks. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), widely used nowadays, is more sensitive than microscopy diagnostic methods.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The aim of this study was to determine the current approach of EBV-driven post-transplant complications in context of monitoring, diagnosis, prevalence and treatment in EBMT transplant centers. Routine serology testing in patient and donor before HCT is performed in 95.5% centers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the connection between SARS-CoV-2 viral load (viremia) and genetic variations (SNPs) linked to the severity of COVID-19 in a group of hospitalized patients at University Hospital La Princesa.
  • Out of 340 patients analyzed, only 37.1% had positive viremia, with specific SNPs (like rs2071746 and rs78958998) associated with a higher risk of viremia, while others (like rs11052877 and rs33980500) were linked to a lower risk.
  • The findings suggest that certain genetic variants contribute to differences in SARS-CoV-2 viremia among individuals, highlighting the
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Patients can be immunocompromised from a diverse range of disease and treatment factors, including malignancies, autoimmune disorders and their treatments, and organ and stem-cell transplantation. Infections are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients, and the disease treatment landscape is continually evolving. Despite being a critical but preventable and curable adverse event, the reporting of infection events in randomised trials lacks sufficient detail while inconsistency of categorisation and definition of infections in observational and registry studies limits comparability and future pooling of data.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Human metapneumovirus (hMPV) epidemiology, clinical characteristics and risk factors for poor outcome after allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-HCT) remain a poorly investigated area.

Methods: This retrospective multicenter cohort study examined the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, and risk factors for poor outcomes associated with human metapneumovirus (hMPV) infections in recipients of allo-HCT.

Results: We included 428 allo-HCT recipients who developed 438 hMPV infection episodes between January 2012 and January 2019.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We previously analyzed trends in incidence and factors associated with lethal complications in ALL/AML/CML patients (causes of deaths; COD-1 study). The objective of this study was the analysis of incidence and specific causes of death after HCT, with focus on infectious deaths in two time periods, 1980-2001 (cohort-1) and 2002-2015 (cohort-2). All patients with HCT for lymphoma, plasma cell disorders, chronic leukemia (except CML), myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative disorders, registered in the EBMT-ProMISe-database were included (n = 232,618) (COD-2 study).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We investigated the incidence and outcome of anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells-associated Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) ≥grade 3 cytopenia. In the EBMT CAR-T registry, we identified 398 adult patients with large B-cell lymphoma who had been treated with CAR-T-cells with axicel (62%) or tisacel (38%) before August 2021 and had cytopenia status documented for the first 100 days. Most patients had received two or three previous lines of therapy, however, 22.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients may be at high risk of mortality from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, specific data on COVID-19 after treatment with HSCT in patients affected by autoimmune diseases (ADs) are still lacking. In this multicenter observational study of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT), clinical data on COVID-19 in 11 patients affected by severe ADs treated with HSCT (n = 3 allogeneic transplant; n = 8 autologous transplant) are reported.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • There is limited data on fungal and parasitic infections in stem-cell transplant recipients outside of Western Europe and North America, highlighting a gap in knowledge.
  • The WBMT Review aims to provide global guidelines for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment based on expert opinions and available evidence.
  • The paper covers various endemic and regional infections, including those classified as neglected tropical diseases by the WHO, such as leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, and malaria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF