Pediatric molecular profiling is feasible, with more than a third of patients being eligible to receive targeted therapy, yet only a small proportion were treated with these therapies. Analysis at diagnosis may be useful for children with very poor prognosis tumsors.

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Pediatric-onset Evans syndrome (pES) is defined by both immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) and autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) before the age of 18 years. There have been no comprehensive long-term studies of this rare disease, which can be associated to various immunopathological manifestations (IMs). We report outcomes of the 151 patients with pES and more than 5 years of follow-up from the nationwide French prospective OBS’CEREVANCE cohort. Median age at final follow-up was 18.5 (6.8–50.0) years and the median follow-up period was 11.3 (5.1–38.0) years. At 10 years, ITP and AIHA were in sustained complete remission in 54.5% and 78.4% of patients, respectively. The frequency and number of clinical and biological IMs increased with age: at 20 years old, 74% had at least one clinical cIM. A wide range of cIMs occurred, mainly lymphoproliferation, dermatological, gastrointestinal/hepatic and pneumological IMs. The number of cIMs was associated with a subsequent increase in the number of second-line treatments received (other than steroids and immunoglobulins; hazard ratio, 1.4; 95% confidence interval, 1.15–1.60; p = 0.0002, Cox proportional hazards method). Survival at 15 years after diagnosis was 84%. Death occurred at a median age of 18 (1.7–31.5) years, and the most frequent cause was infection. The number of second-line treatments and severe/recurrent infections were independently associated with mortality. In conclusion, longterm outcomes of pES showed remission of cytopenias but frequent IMs linked to high secondline treatment burden. Mortality was associated to drugs and/or underlying immunodeficiencies, and adolescents-young adults are a high-risk subgroup.

Splenectomy is effective in ~70-80% of pediatric chronic immune thrombocytopenia (cITP) and few data exist in autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) and Evans syndrome (ES). Because of the irreversibility of the procedure and the lack of predictor of long-term outcomes, splenectomy decision is difficult to take in children. We report here factors associated with splenectomy outcomes from the OBS'CEREVANCE cohort, which prospectively includes French children with autoimmune cytopenia (AIC) since 2004. The primary outcome was failure-free survival (FFS), defined as the time from splenectomy to the initiation of a second-line treatment (other than steroids and intravenous immunoglobulins) or death. We included 161 patients (cITP n = 120, AIHA n = 19, ES n = 22) with a median (min-max) follow-up of 6.8 years (1.0-33.3) after splenectomy. AIC subtype was not associated with FFS. We found that immunopathological manifestations (IMs) were strongly associated with unfavorable outcomes. Diagnosis of an IM before splenectomy was associated with a lower FFS (hazard ratio [HR] 0.39, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.21-0.72, p = 0.003, adjusted for AIC subtype). Diagnosis of an IM at any timepoint during follow-up was associated with an even lower FFS (HR 0.22, 95% CI 0.12-0.39, p = 2.8x10-7, adjusted for AIC subtype) as well as with higher risk of recurrent or severe bacterial infections and thrombosis. In conclusion, our results support the search for associated IMs when considering a splenectomy to refine the risk-benefit ratio. After the procedure, monitoring IMs helps to identify patients with higher risk of unfavorable outcome.