A multi-centre retrospective analysis on 117 patients relapsing after bone marrow transplantation (BMT) for acute leukaemia was carried out by the Leukaemia Working Party of the European Group for Bone Marrow Transplantation (E.B.M.T.). Forty-one patients had acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and 76 had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). Relapse occurred between 3 and 30 months after BMT and where investigated the leukaemia was found to have relapsed in recipient cells. In 10 cases the relapse was associated with new cytogenetic abnormalities. 74 patients received further treatment for leukaemia. Of these 21 out of 50 with ALL and 11 out of 24 with AML achieved a complete remission and had a median survival of 12 months compared with a median survival of 4 months for untreated patients or patients not achieving complete remission (P less than 0.001). Factors predictive for successful remission induction were a long interval between bone marrow transplant and relapse in ALL patients; and isolated extramedullary relapse. Presenting blast count, karyotype and remission status and number at the time of BMT were not predictive. Donor bone marrow was shown to be responsible for haemopoietic recovery occurring in the 21 out of 31 patients tested who achieved remission using donor karyotype or red blood cell antigens as markers. Nine patients received a second bone marrow transplant but only one became a long-term survivor. The results show that chemotherapy can usually prolong survival in selected patients with acute leukaemia relapsing after BMT but further BMT has a poor outlook.

The chemokine receptor CXCR4 has been implicated in the migration and trafficking of malignant B cells in several haematological malignancies. Over‐expression of CXCR4 has been identified in haematological tumours, but data concerning the role of this receptor in diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) are lacking. CXCR4 is a marker of poor prognosis in various neoplasms, correlating with metastatic disease and decreased survival of patients. We studied CXCR4 involvement in cell migration in vitro and dissemination in vivo. We also evaluated the prognostic significance of CXCR4 in 94 biopsies of DLBCL patients. We observed that the level of expression of CXCR4 in DLBCL cell lines correlated positively with in vitro migration. Expression of the receptor was also associated with increased engraftment and dissemination, and decreased survival time in NOD/SCID mice. Furthermore, administration of a specific CXCR4 antagonist, AMD3100, decreased dissemination of DLBCL cells in a xenograft mouse model. In addition, we found that CXCR4 expression is an independent prognostic factor for shorter overall survival and progression‐free survival in DLBCL patients. These results show that CXCR4 mediates dissemination of DLBCL cells and define for the first time its value as an independent prognostic marker in DLBCL patients. Copyright © 2014 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Summary:We investigated the impact of the most commonly used preparative regimens on the outcome of 395 patients with diffuse large cell lymphoma (DLCL), consecutively reported to the registry of the Spanish GEL/TAMO. Among them, 139 (35%) were autografted in 1st CR, 86 (22%) in 2nd/3rd CR, 124 (31%) had chemosensitive disease and 46 (12%) had chemoresistant disease. Conditioning consisted of chemotherapy-only in 348 patients (BEAM, 164; BEAC, 145; and CBV, 39) and radiochemotherapy with CY and TBI in 47. Median times to granulocyte, platelet recovery and to discharge were significantly shorter in the chemotherapy-only group. Early transplant-related mortality was significantly higher when using CY-TBI. After a median follow-up of 28 months, overall survival (OS) at 8 years of patients conditioned with BEAM or BEAC (58% (95% CI 50-66%)) was more favorable than with CBV (40% (95% CI 24-56%)), and significantly better than with CY-TBI (31% (95% CI 18-44%)). Multivariate analysis revealed that patients conditioned with chemotherapyonly regimens had improved OS, disease-free (DFS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) when compared to those conditioned with CY-TBI. Status at transplant was also a powerful prognostic indicator. We conclude that preparative regimens consisting of chemotherapy-only seem more efficacious than CY-TBI as conditioning for DLCL, because of faster engraftment and greater antilymphoma effect, as indicated by improved OS, DFS and RFS. Bone Marrow Transplantation (2001) 27, 405-412. Keywords: high-dose therapy; preparative regimens; non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; prognostic factors; diffuse large cell lymphoma Over the past two decades, high-dose therapy (HDT) followed by autologous stem-cell transplantation (ASCT) has been explored to improve the long-term outcome of patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Despite the many reports, a number of questions remain unanswered regarding the best transplantation technique in this spectrum of disorders.

Chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD)

Our data indicate that the silencing of CDH13 expression by aberrant promoter methylation occurs at an early stage in CML pathogenesis and probably influences the clinical behavior of the disease.