Background: To tackle the problems associated with high-dose dexamethasone (HD-DXM) in patients with immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). Aim: To compare the efficacy of HD-DXM with or without low-dose dexamethasone maintenance in untreated ITP patients. Results: Dexamethasone (40 mg/day) was given in 4-day pulses every 14 days for 3 cycles in 61 patients with ITP. Among them, 30 cases were given dexamethasone (0.035 mg/kg per day) for maintenance between pulsed HD-DXM and after 3 HD-DXM courses (HD-DXM-M group) and another 31 cases did not receive dexamethasone maintenance (HD-DXM-nM group). The control group comprised the patients who received prednisone (prednisone group). The following results were obtained: (1) at the end of the 3rd cycle, the overall response rate (ORR) was higher in the HD-DXM group than in the prednisone group; (2) the ORR of the HD-DXM group peaked after the 3rd cycle; (3) the ORR after each course was higher in the HD-DXM-M group than in the HD-DXM-nM group; (4) in the 12th month after HD-DXM discontinuation, the relapse rate of the HD-DXM-M group was lower than that of the other groups (prednisone and HD-DXM-nM). Conclusion: Treatment with 3 cycles of HD-DXM pulses with low-dose dexamethasone maintenance is an effective method for untreated ITP.

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This study investigated the effect of homoharringtonine (HHT) on bone marrow CD34 + CD117 + cells in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Fifty-seven patients with CML who could not receive either imatinib or interferon-α were treated with HHT (n = 31) or hydroxycarbamide (HU) (n = 26) to induce and maintain remission, and bone marrow CD34 + CD117 + cells were assayed with flow cytometry. The proportion of CD34 + CD117 + cells was higher in untreated patients (24.7 ± 6.4%) than in donors (4.4 ± 1.1%) and decreased remarkably in patients who had hematological remission (11.2 ± 3.1%) and cytogenetic response (8.9 ± 3.1%) as compared with those without (27.8 ± 7.3% and 18.5 ± 5.3%, respectively) at 12 months after therapy. The hematological remission rate for patients with proportion of CD34 + CD117 + cells ≥ 20% prior to treatment was lower (41.7%) than in patients with CD34 + CD117 + cells < 20% (78.9%; p < 0.05). However, there was no such difference of CD34 + CD117 + cell percentage in the HU group. It can be concluded that high expression of CD117 on CD34 + cells is a marker of poor prognosis and is also a target for the anti-CML effect of HHT.

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