The primary therapeutic approach to acquired aplastic anemia (AA) in older adults differs from the primary approach used in children and younger adults because in the former group, the results of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) are less favorable. With increasing age of the patients, immunosuppressive therapy with antithymocyte globulin (ATG) and cyclosporine (CsA) constitutes the primary treatment option and may be better than BMT. There are very few clinical clues as to the selection of patients likely to respond to immunosuppression. Repeated ATG/CsA cycles are often used as salvage regimens, but in refractory patients BMT may be the best treatment option, as the prognosis for non-responders is poor without definitive treatment. Conservative therapy such as intense immunosuppression is associated with a high relapse rate but does not impact the survival and overall prognosis. The inability to eliminate autoimmune T cell clones using current therapeutic strategies suggests that prolonged immunosuppressive maintenance therapy may be needed for a substantial proportion of patients. Late clonal complications of conservatively treated patients include evolution to myelodysplasia and paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria and may develop in 20% of the patients. However, BMT also has several sequelae including an increased frequency of solid tumors. Novel immunosuppressive and immunomodulatory agents and constantly improving results of allogeneic BMT will further improve the survival rate of adult patients with AA.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1182/asheducation-2005.1.110 | DOI Listing |
A 66-year-old woman was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) due to the finding of leukocytosis and started acalabrutinib and obinutuzumab (AO) therapy. After three cycles of AO therapy, she developed severe pancytopenia with hypoplastic bone marrow and was diagnosed with fulminant aplastic anemia (AA) due to neutropenia with no response to granulocyte colony-stimulating factor. One month after the onset of AA, she received HLA-haploidentical allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (haplo-SCT) from a daughter using FluMelTBI (fludarabine 180 mg/m, melphalan 80 mg/m, total body irradiation 4 Gy) as the conditioning regimen and tacrolimus, mycophenolate mofetil, and post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PTCy) for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMycopathologia
January 2025
Department of Clinical Microbiology, St. James Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.
Magnusiomyces capitatus is an environmental fungus found in soil, water, air, plants, and dairy products which may cause opportunistic infections in patients with haematological disorders resulting in high mortality rates. This series of the first reported cases in Ireland discusses investigation of two patients with underlying haematological disorders, hospitalised in the Irish National Adult Stem Cell Transplant Unit (NASCTU), who developed line-related fungaemias with M. capitatus within a three-month period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIptacopan, a first-in-class, oral, selective complement factor B inhibitor, demonstrated efficacy and safety as monotherapy in C5 inhibitor (C5i)-experienced (APPLY-PNH [NCT04558918]) and C5i-naive (APPOINT-PNH [NCT04820530]) patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH). In APPLY-PNH and APPOINT-PNH, changes in fatigue (FACIT-Fatigue) and health-related quality of life (HRQOL; EORTC QLQ-C30) from baseline to Day 168 were evaluated. The proportion of patients achieving meaningful within-patient change (MWPC) on the FACIT-Fatigue and 4 EORTC QLQ-C30 subscales (physical functioning, role functioning, fatigue, dyspnea) was evaluated using anchor-based thresholds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomark Res
January 2025
Department of Oncology, Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) genetic variants are commonly seen in high-grade myeloid neoplasms and are typically gain-of-function mutations associated with a proliferative disease phenotype. Inactivating FLT3 variants have been less frequently described in non-malignant, autoimmune disorders and are uncommon in aplastic anemia (AA). Herein, we report the first to our knowledge, and unusual case of a germline, gain-of-function, FLT3 variant in a patient with severe AA treated successfully with immunosuppressive therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Nano
January 2025
Institute of Advanced Interdisciplinary Science, School of Physics, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China.
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