Publications by authors named "Sarah Elitzur"

Article Synopsis
  • ACKR1/DARC-associated neutropenia (ADAN) is a common benign blood condition, primarily affecting people of African and Jewish Yemenite descent, caused by a specific genetic variant.
  • A study conducted in Israel from 2018-2023 assessed 115 children with isolated neutropenia, finding that 42.6% had ADAN, with a significant portion presenting severe neutropenia.
  • The research suggests that ADAN doesn't increase infection risk and advocates for genetic testing in children with neutropenia to streamline diagnosis and potentially reduce unnecessary treatments.
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Background: Constitutional mismatch repair deficiency syndrome (CMMRD) is a rare childhood cancer predisposition syndrome associated with a broad spectrum of malignancies, including non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL). Most patients die due to cancer before the age of 20 years. Limited data exist on CMMRD-associated lymphomas and their outcome.

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Ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) is an autosomal-recessive disorder caused by pathogenic variants (PVs) of the ATM gene, predisposing children to hematological malignancies. We investigated their characteristics and outcomes to generate data-based treatment recommendations. In this multinational, observational study we report 202 patients aged ≤25 years with A-T and hematological malignancies from 25 countries.

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  • Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (γδ T-ALL) is a rare and complex condition in children, prompting a study of 200 pediatric cases to identify its clinical and genetic characteristics.
  • The research revealed that very young children (under 3 years) with γδ T-ALL face a significantly high risk and display specific genetic changes, particularly involving STAG2 inactivation and LMO2 activation.
  • Importantly, their findings suggest that targeting DNA repair pathways linked to STAG2 inactivation with specific drugs could offer new treatment options and help classify patients based on their risk levels.
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Somatic variants in DNA damage response genes such as ATM are widespread in hematologic malignancies. ATM protein is essential for double-strand DNA break repair. Germline ATM deficiencies underlie ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T), a disease manifested by radiosensitivity, immunodeficiency, and predisposition to lymphoid malignancies.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Three new recurring KMT2A-rearranged groups were identified, and a significant variation in 5-year event-free survival rates was observed across 13 different groups, highlighting the impact of genetic factors on patient outcomes.
  • * The research suggests incorporating five specific adverse-risk KMT2A fusions into current risk stratification models and calls for further studies to confirm the associations
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Pneumocystis jirovecii can cause life-threatening pneumonia (PjP), and patients with haematological malignancies are at high risk of this infection. Prophylactic measures have significantly decreased morbidity and mortality, but there is a paucity of contemporary data on the incidence and clinical course of PjP in well-defined and homogenous patient populations, such as children suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). In the multi-international trial AIEOP-BFM ALL2009, PjP was diagnosed in six children (incidence 1/1000) and was associated with insufficient prophylaxis in five of them.

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Purpose: The AIEOP-BFM ALL 2009 protocol included, at the end of the induction phase, a randomized study of patients with high-risk (HR) ALL to investigate if an intensive exposure to pegylated L-asparaginase (PEG-ASNASE, 2,500 IU/sqm once a week × 4) on top of BFM consolidation phase IB allowed us to decrease minimal residual disease (MRD) and improve outcome.

Patients And Methods: A total of 1,097 patients presented, from June 2010 to February 2017, with one or more of the following HR criteria: rearrangement, hypodiploidy, prednisone poor response, poor bone marrow response at day 15 (Flow MRD ≥10%), or no complete remission (CR) at the end of induction. Of them, 809 (85.

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Purpose: Gamma delta T-cell receptor-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (γδ T-ALL) is a high-risk but poorly characterized disease.

Methods: We studied clinical features of 200 pediatric γδ T-ALL, and compared the prognosis of 93 cases to 1,067 protocol-matched non-γδ T-ALL. Genomic features were defined by transcriptome and genome sequencing.

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Children with hemato-oncological diseases or following stem cell transplantation (SCT) are at high risk for life-threatening infections; sepsis in this population constitutes a substantial proportion of pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admissions. The current pediatric prognostic scoring tools to evaluate illness severity and mortality risk are designed for the general pediatric population and may not be adequate for this vulnerable subpopulation. Retrospective analysis was performed on all PICU admissions for sepsis in children with hemato-oncological diseases or post-SCT, in a single tertiary pediatric hospital between 2008 and 2021 ( = 233).

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Histiocytoses are inflammatory myeloid neoplasms often driven by somatic activating mutations in mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade genes. H syndrome is an inflammatory genetic disorder caused by germ line loss-of-function mutations in SLC29A3, encoding the lysosomal equilibrative nucleoside transporter 3 (ENT3). Patients with H syndrome are predisposed to develop histiocytosis, yet the mechanism is unclear.

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Purpose: Historically, patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) who fail to achieve remission at the end of induction (EOI) have had poor long-term survival. The goal of this study was to examine the efficacy of contemporary therapy, including allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in first remission (CR1).

Methods: Induction failure (IF) was defined as the persistence of at least 5% bone marrow (BM) lymphoblasts and/or extramedullary disease after 4-6 weeks of induction chemotherapy.

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The incidence of hypersensitivity reactions (HSRs) to PEG-asparaginase (PEG-ASNase) was evaluated in 6136 children with ALL enrolled in the AIEOP-BFM ALL 2009 study. Patients with B-cell precursor-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL) were stratified as standard-risk/medium-risk (MR)/high-risk (HR) and those with T-ALL as non-High/HR. PEG-ASNase was administered intravenously at 2500 IU/sqm/dose.

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Although initial central nervous system (CNS) involvement is rarely detected in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), risk-adapted CNS-directed therapy is essential for all patients. Treatment intensity depends on the initial CNS status. In the AIEOP-BFM ALL 2009 trial, patients with cytomorphologic detection of leukemic blasts in initial cerebrospinal fluid were classified as CNS2 or CNS3 and received five intrathecal doses of methotrexate (MTX) in induction therapy compared to patients with CNS1 status (no blasts detected) who received three doses.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study by the I-BFM-SG on childhood rearranged acute myeloid leukemia (AML) revealed that the type of fusion partner plays a significant role in prognosis, and it also explored the effectiveness of flow cytometry-based measurable residual disease (flow-MRD) and allogeneic stem-cell transplantation (allo-SCT) in improving outcomes during first complete remission.
  • The research involved 1,130 children diagnosed with rearranged AML, who were categorized into high-risk and non-high-risk groups based on their fusion partners, and it focused on the relationship between flow-MRD levels and long-term survival rates.
  • Results showed that the high-risk group had significantly worse event-free survival, cumulative incidence of relapse, and overall survival
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Recent genome-wide studies have demonstrated that a significant proportion of children with cancer carry predisposing germline variants, with varying incidence according to cancer type. In general, there is a lower incidence of underlying germline predisposing variants among patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) compared to other types of cancer, but higher rates may be found in patients with specific leukemia subtypes. Two categories of ALL-predisposing variants have been described: common polymorphisms, conferring low-penetrance ALL susceptibility, and rare variants, conferring high-penetrance ALL susceptibility.

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Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood malignancy, constituting approximately 25% of childhood cancers. In recent decades, survival rates have improved dramatically, from approximately 10% in the 1960's to over 90% today. This tremendous achievement has been accomplished through collaborative randomized clinical trials, with progressive evolution of highly efficient, risk-adapted multi-agent chemotherapeutic regimens, effective central nervous system prophylactic strategies and improved supportive care.

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In children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), risk groups for invasive fungal disease (IFD) with need for antifungal prophylaxis are not well characterized, and with the advent of new antifungal compounds, current data on outcome are scarce. Prospectively captured serious adverse event reports of children enrolled in the international, multi-center clinical trial AIEOP-BFM ALL2009 were screened for proven/probable IFD, defined according to the updated EORTC/MSG consensus definitions. In a total of 6136 children (median age 5.

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Article Synopsis
  • Some kids who had a type of blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) might get another type of cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) after their treatment.
  • In a study of 85 kids with NHL after ALL, most cases happened during or soon after their main treatment.
  • Many of these kids had weakened immune systems, which is important to know for better and faster diagnosis and treatment.
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Purpose: We aimed to study prognostic factors and efficacy of allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) in first remission of patients with noninfant childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) with 11q23/ rearrangements treated with chemotherapy regimens between 1995 and 2010.

Patients And Methods: Data were retrospectively retrieved from 629 patients with 11q23/-rearranged ALL from 17 members of the Ponte-di-Legno Childhood ALL Working Group. Clinical and biologic characteristics, early response assessed by minimal residual disease at the end of induction (EOI) therapy, and allo-HSCT were analyzed for their impact on outcomes.

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Patients with double stranded DNA repair disorders (DNARDs) (Ataxia Telangiectasia (AT) and Nijmegen Breakage syndrome (NBS)) are at a very high risk for developing hematological malignancies in the first two decades of life. The most common neoplasms are T-cell lymphoblastic malignancies (T-cell ALL and T-cell LBL) and diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Treatment of these patients is challenging due to severe complications of the repair disorder itself (e.

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Invasive Fusarium species infections in immunocompromised patients occur predominantly in those with hematological malignancies. Survival rates of 20−40% were reported in adults, but data in children are limited. Our retrospective, nationwide multicenter study of invasive fusariosis in pediatric hematology/oncology and stem cell transplant (SCT) patients identified twenty-two cases.

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