No abstract

sTNF-RI is upregulated in the serum of IBD patients compared to healthy controls and could be used as a marker for disease activity. sTNF-RII levels are significantly more elevated in serum of active CD patients as compared to UC and could be used as an additional parameter to discriminate both diseases.

A minority of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients is capable of successfully discontinuing imatinib. Treatment modalities to increase this proportion are currently unknown. Here, we assessed the role of interferon alpha 2a (IFN) on therapy discontinuation in a previously reported cohort of 20 chronic phase CML patients who were treated upfront with IFN alpha plus imatinib followed by IFN monotherapy to maintain cytogenetic or molecular remission (MR) after imatinib discontinuation. After a median follow-up of 7.9 years (range, 5.2-12.2), relapse-free survival was 73% (8/11 patients) and 84% (5/6 patients) for patients who discontinued imatinib in major MR (MMR) and MR4/MR4.5, respectively. Ten patients discontinued IFN after a median of 4.5 years (range, 0.24-9.3). After a median of 2.8 years (range, 0.7-5.1), nine of them remain in ongoing treatment-free remission with MR5 (n=6) and MR4.5 (n=3). The four patients who still administer IFN are in stable MR5, MR4.5, MR4, and MMR, respectively. In conclusion, an IFN/imatinib induction treatment followed by a temporary IFN maintenance therapy may enable a high rate of treatment discontinuation in CML patients in at least MMR when stopping imatinib.

Background: The Matutes score (MS) was proposed to differentiate chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) from other B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas (B-NHLs). However, ambiguous immunophenotypes are common and remain a diagnostic challenge. Therefore, we evaluated the diagnostic benefit of measuring CD200 and CD43 expression together with the standard MS antigens. Methods: 138 lymphoma patient samples and a validation cohort of 138 additive samples were classified according to the standard MS and further assigned with one or two additional points, for high CD200 and/or CD43 expression levels. The "classical" MS and the "Matutes score-extended" (MS-e) were categorized as high (4-5/6-7), intermediate (2-3/4-5), and low (0-1/0-3). Samples were reclassified into the MS-e with focus on ambiguous cases with an intermediate "classical" MS. Results: A total of 35 of 138 (25.4%) patient samples were assigned to the intermediate MS group and confirmed by histopathological reports as CLL (14/40.0%) and B-NHLs other than CLL (21/60%). MS-e analysis identified 13 of 14 (92.9%) of CLL cases (MS-e 4-5) and 18/21 (85.7%) non-CLL cases (MS-e ≤ 3) correctly. Overall, the sensitivity of the CLL diagnosis was significantly increased by application of MS-e compared to the "classical" MS (98.8% vs. 82.7%; p = 0.0009), while specificity of both methods was almost equal (94.7% vs. 98.3%; p = 0.4795). Of note, sole measurement of CD43 and CD200 on B-cells sufficiently differentiated CLL from non-CLL with a test accuracy superior to the "classical" MS (F1 score 96.2 vs. 93.6). Conclusion: CD200 and CD43 have a high informative value in diagnostic immunophenotyping and facilitate the separation of CLL from other B-NHLs particularly in ambiguous cases.