Mitral valve surgery in severe congenital factor VII deficiency.

The estimated incidence of congenital factor VII deficiency is 1:500 000. Severe FVII deficiency is associated with spontaneous bleeding such as intraarticular or intracranial haemorrhage. The risk of perioperative bleeding is high during cardiac surgery as a result of the exposure to extracorporeal circulation, systemic anticoagulation, loss of coagulation factors, and postoperative platelet malfunction.

Validation of prognostic factors and survival of patients with multiple myeloma in a real-life autologous stem cell transplantation setting: a Swiss single centre experience.

Principles: High-dose chemotherapy with subsequent autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) is an important treatment option in younger patients with multiple myeloma (MM). We analysed the outcome of patients treated at our institution outside the clinical trials framework and tried to identify risk factors prognostic for survival.

Methods: Medical histories of the patients were screened for response, event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS).

Pegfilgrastim reduces the length of hospitalization and the time to engraftment in multiple myeloma patients treated with melphalan 200 and auto-SCT compared with filgrastim.

To reduce the duration of neutropenia after conditioning chemotherapy and autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (APBSCT), granulocyte-colony stimulating factors (G-CSF) are commonly administered. We retrospectively evaluated the impact of pegfilgrastim compared to filgrastim on neutrophil engraftment, hospital stay, and supportive measures in patients with multiple myeloma after conditioning with Melphalan 200 (Mel200) followed by APBSCT. Ninety-two APBSCT after Mel200 treatment were performed in 72 patients between January 2006 and December 2009 at our institution.

Concomitant statin use does not impair the clinical outcome of patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma treated with rituximab-CHOP.

Preclinical data indicated a detrimental effect of statins on the anti-lymphoma activity of rituximab. We evaluated the impact of concomitant statin medication on the response and survival of patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) receiving rituximab-cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone (R-CHOP) as first-line therapy. Medical histories of patients with DLBCL who were treated with R-CHOP as first-line therapy were assessed for concomitant statin use, response after completion of chemotherapy, event-free survival (EFS), and overall survival (OS).

Long-term follow-up of interferon-alpha induction and low-dose maintenance therapy in hairy cell leukemia.

Objective: Interferon-alpha (IFNalpha) was the first effective pharmacologic treatment of hairy cell leukemia (HCL). Since 1990 purine analogs replaced IFNalpha because of higher rates of complete remission and an invariable disease recurrence after cessation of IFNalpha. However, there are only limited data about long-term maintenance treatment with IFNalpha and none about dose finding in this phase.