Association of Tumor-informed Circulating Tumor DNA Detectability Before and After Radical Cystectomy with Disease-free Survival in Patients with Bladder Cancer.

Background And Objective: Despite curative-intent radical cystectomy (RC), patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) are at high risk of recurrence. Biomarkers are urgently needed to refine prognostication and selection of appropriate perioperative systemic therapies. Our aim was to evaluate the prognostic and predictive value of tumor-informed circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) results in a multicenter cohort of patients with bladder cancer who underwent RC.

The May-Hegglin anomaly: a rare cause of a common complaint.

May-Hegglin anomaly is the presentation of a qualitative platelet disorder characterised by large platelets, thrombocytopenia and granulocyte inclusions as a result of mutations in the gene. Though often overlooked given its rarity, it should be considered in patients who present with epistaxis, bruising, menorrhagia and easy bleeding as it can be mistaken for other diagnoses resulting in unnecessary treatments and tests. Our case study reports one presentation of this anomaly and can help broaden awareness of the presentation of this type of patient.

Relationship between circulating tumor-associated autoantibodies and clinical outcomes in advanced-stage NSCLC patients receiving PD-1/-L1 directed immune checkpoint inhibition.

Background: Durable tumor regressions are observed in a subset of advanced-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients receiving PD-1/-L1 targeted immune checkpoint inhibitors (or 'immunotherapy') alone or in combination with chemotherapy. However, the majority of advanced NSCLC patients receiving these agents do not experience long-term disease control. Existing methods to identify patients most likely to gain clinical benefit from PD-1/-L1 immunotherapy have limitations, creating a need for improved methods to guide treatment selection, particularly for those likely to benefit from single-agent immunotherapy.

Durable Response to Venetoclax Monotherapy in Richter's Syndrome: A Case Report and Review of Literature.

In 2017, 20,110 people in the United States were diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Of these patients, 5-15% will ultimately undergo Richter's syndrome (RS), a transformation to a more aggressive lymphoma, most commonly diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) type. Particularly when the transformation is clonally related, prognosis is poor in these individuals with a median survival of only 5 - 14 months.

Persistent leukocytosis in polycythemia vera is associated with disease evolution but not thrombosis.

There are unresolved questions regarding the association between persistent leukocytosis and risk of thrombosis and disease evolution in polycythemia vera (PV), as much of the published literature on the topic does not appropriately use repeated-measures data or time-dependent modeling to answer these questions. To address this knowledge gap, we analyzed a retrospective database of 520 PV patients seen at 10 academic institutions across the United States. Taking hematologic laboratory data at ∼3-month intervals (or as available) for all patients for duration of follow-up, we used group-based trajectory modeling to identify latent clusters of patients who follow distinct trajectories with regard to their leukocyte, hematocrit, and platelet counts over time.

Exceptional Response with Immunotherapy in a Patient with Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer.

Unlabelled: Chemotherapy with or without radiation is the standard therapy for anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC), although the response rate is not high and not durable. We describe a 62-year-old male who was diagnosed with ATC and initially treated with a thyroidectomy and lymph node dissection, followed by chemotherapy. Next generation sequencing was then performed to guide therapy and the tumor was found to have BRAF and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) positivity that was subsequently treated with vemurafenib and nivolumab.