The clinical activity of rituximab, a chimeric monoclonal antibody which binds to the CD20 antigen, was evaluated as a single first-line therapy for patients with follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Fifty patients with follicular CD20 ؉ NHL and a low tumor burden were analyzed for clinical and molecular responses. They received 4 weekly infusions of rituximab at a dose of 375 mg/m 2 . The response rate a month after treatment (day 50) was 36 of 49 (73%), with 10 patients in complete remission, 3 patients in complete remission/unconfirmed, and 23 patients in partial remission. Ten patients had stable disease, and the disease progressed in 3 patients. One of 13 (8%) patients in complete remission, 9 of 23 (39%) patients in partial remission, and 5 of 10 (50%) patients with stable disease exhibited disease progression during the first year. Within the study population, 32 patients were initially informative for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) data on bcl-2-J H rearrangement. On day 50, 17 of 30 patients (57%) were negative for bcl-2-J H rearrangement in peripheral blood, and 9 of 29 (31%) were negative in bone marrow; a significant association was observed between molecular and clinical responses (P < .0001). At month 12, 16 of 26 patients (62%) were PCR negative in peripheral blood. These results indicate that early molecular responses can be sustained for up to 12 months and that this response is highly correlated with progression-free survival. Rituximab has a high clinical activity and a low toxicity and induces a high complete molecular response rate in patients with follicular lymphoma and a low tumor burden. (Blood. 2001;97:101-106)

To study the prevalence of the Val617Phe JAK2 mutation in familial cases of myeloproliferative disorder (MPD) and its possible implication as a predisposing genetic factor, we analyzed 72 families including 174 patients (

References1 Huntly BJP, Reid AG, Bench AJ, Campbell LJ, Telford N, Shepherd P, Szer J, Prince HM, Turner P, Grace C, Nacheva EP, Green AR. Deletions of the derivative chromosome 9 occur at the time of the Philadelphia translocation and provide a powerful and independent prognostic indicator in chronic myeloid leukemia. is an auto-immune disease where the stroma usually functions normally, damage of the microenvironment has been observed in a subset of SAA patients. 5 We report here a 68-year-old woman patient with end stage SAA refractory to administration of growth factors, cyclosporine A, antithymocyte globuline and ineligible for an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). This patient received two infusions of allogeneic MSC, in order to improve a possible defective BM stroma, to stimulate hypothetical residual HSC by local production of Correspondence: L Fouillard,