Acute myeloid leukemia is driven by leukemic stem cells which can be identified by cross lineage expression or arrest of differentiation compared to normal hematopoietic stem cells. Self-renewal and lack of differentiation are also features of stem cells and have been associated with the expression of embryonic genes. The aim of our study was to evaluate the expression of embryonic antigens (OCT4, NANOG, SOX2, SSEA1, SSEA3) in hematopoietic stem cell subsets (CD34 + CD38 − and CD34 + CD38 + ) from normal bone marrows and in samples from acute myeloid leukemia patients. We observed an upregulation of the transcription factors OCT4 and SOX2 in leukemic cells as compared to normal cells. Conversely, SSEA1 protein was downregulated in leukemic cells. The expression of OCT4, SOX2, and SSEA3 was higher in CD34 + CD38 − than in CD34 + CD38 + subsets in leukemic cells. There was no correlation with biological characteristics of the leukemia. We evaluated the prognostic value of marker expression in 69 patients who received an intensive treatment. The rate of complete remission was not influenced by the level of expression of markers. Overall survival was significantly better for patients with high SOX2 levels, which was unexpected because of the inverse correlation with favorable genetic subtypes. These results prompt us to evaluate the potential role of these markers in leukemogenesis and to test their relevance for better leukemic stem cell identification.

Several approaches have been developed to overcome historical barriers associated with poor outcomes in the setting of HLA-haploidentical allogeneic transplantation (HaploSCT). Here, we examine the outcome of patients with various hematological disorders undergoing HaploSCT with high-dose, post-transplantation cyclophosphamide. We performed a retrospective study on 381 patients from 30 centers between January 2013 and December 2015. At the last follow-up, a total of 1058 infectious episodes were diagnosed, affecting 90.3% of the cohort. Median time to first infection was 13 days for bacterial, 32 days for viral and 20 days for fungal infections. Around 41% of these infections were of bacterial origin and 35% of viral origin, among which 48.8% of patients presented CMV reactivation. Median of GVHD relapse-free survival, progression-free survival and overall survival were 7.1 months, 19.9 months and 33.5 months, respectively. HSCT procedure was the primary or contributing cause of death (55.6%), followed by relapse of the original disease (34.2%). Infections accounted for 45.7% of the HSCT-related deaths. The present multicenter data on a large cohort of patients receiving HaploSCT with PTCy confirmed the feasibility of the procedure with an acceptable incidence of infectious complications, not different as compared to other haploidentical platforms or HLA-matched transplantation.

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Platelet transfusion refractoriness (PTR), defined as an unsatisfactory post‐transfusion platelet count increment, is a common complication of patients receiving multiple transfusions. Different strategies are described in the management of PTR. In this work, we demonstrate the efficacy of the detection and identification of anti‐HLA antibodies in the recipient using a threshold of 3000 mean fluorescence intensity (MFI), and the seek of donors not expressing HLA antigens against which the patient is immunized.

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