BackgroundThere is little data on treatment of Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) in adults. Available data is on small numbers of patients with short follow-up times and no comparison of results from different treatment regimens. We analyzed the responses of adult LCH patients with bone lesions to three primary chemotherapy treatments to define the optimal one.Methods and FindingsFifty-eight adult patients with bone lesions, either as a solitary site or as a component of multisystem disease, were analyzed for disease location and response to surgery, curettage, steroids, radiation, vinblastine/prednisone, 2-Chlorodeoxyadenosine (2-CdA), or cytosine arabinoside (ARA-C). The mean age of patients was 32 years, with equal gender distribution. Twenty-nine patients had 1 lesion; 16, 2 lesions; 5, 3 lesions; and 8 had 4 or more. Most bone lesions were in the skull, spine, or jaw. Chemotherapy, surgery, curettage, or radiation, but not steroids alone, achieved improvement or resolution of lesions in a majority of patients. Comparison of the three chemotherapy regimens revealed 84% of patients treated with vinblastine/prednisone either did not respond or relapsed within a year, whereas 59% of patients treated with 2-CdA and 21% treated with ARA-C failed. Toxicity was worse with the vinblastine/prednisone group as 75% had grade 3–4 neuropathy. Grade 3–4 cytopenias occurred in 37% of the 2-CdA -treated patients and 20% of the ARA-C-treated patients. The major limitation of this study is it is retrospective and not a clinical trial.ConclusionsARA-C is an effective and minimally toxic treatment for LCH bone lesions in adults. In contrast, vinblastine/prednisone results in poor overall responses and excessive toxicity.

The aim of this study was to validate a novel technique that predicts stopping of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and biologic agents (BA) from the Veterans Affairs (VA) database and compare infection risks of rheumatoid arthritis patients who stopped versus continued DMARDs/BA perioperatively. We identified 6,024 patients on 1 DMARD or BA in the perioperative period between 1999 and 2009. Time gap between medication stop date and the next start date predicted drug stoppage (X). Time gap between surgery date and stop date predicted whether stoppage was before surgery (Y). Chart review from Houston VA was used for validation. ROC analyses were performed on chart review data to obtain X and Y cutoffs. The primary endpoints were wound infections and other infections within 30 days. ROC analyses found X ≥ 33 (AUC = 0.954) and Y ≥ -11 (AUC = 0.846). Risk of postoperative infections was not different when stopping and continuing DMARDs/BA preoperatively. Stopping BA after surgery was associated with higher odds of postoperative wound (OR 14.15, 95 % CI 1.76-113.76) and general infection (OR 9.2, 95 % CI 1.99-42.60) compared to not stopping. Stopping DMARDs after surgery was associated with increased risk of postoperative general infection (OR 1.84, 95 % CI 1.07-3.16) compared with not stopping. There was positive association between stopping DMARDs after surgery and postoperative wound infection but failed to achieve statistical significance (OR 1.67, 95 % CI 0.96-2.91). There was no significant difference in postoperative infection risk when stopping or continuing DMARD/BA. Our new validated method can be utilized in the VA and other databases to predict drug stoppage.

Clinical data were collected in 194 cases of jaundiced patients treated at the "Adolfo Lopez Mateos" ISSSTE Hospital in Mexico City from July 1985 to July 1986. A copy of the clinical history of each patient was given to each of four physicians--one recently graduated from medical school, another in his first year of gastroenterology, and two others who were experienced gastroenterologists. The same clinical data were processed by a computer set up to use a modified Danish COMIC algorithm. All physicians and the computer technician were blinded to the "gold standard" pathologic diagnoses, with which their diagnoses were compared. Accuracy rates of the physicians in distinguishing intrahepatic (medical) from extrahepatic (surgical) jaundice were 78%, 86%, 86%, and 91%, and the accuracy of computer-assisted diagnoses was 96%. Chi-squared analysis of the diagnoses of three of the physicians and those of the computer showed significant differences (p between 0.1 and 0.01). For the diagnoses of the remaining physician, however, no significant difference was found after chi-squared continuity correction.

Introduction Despite indistinguishable histology and the common feature of Birbeck granules in lesion biopsies, clinical presentation of patients with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH) is highly variable, from single lesion cured by curretage, to multi-system disease requiring aggressive chemotherapy or stem cell transplant. Risk stratification for Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis has historically assigned clinical risk groups based on anatomic location and extent of LCH lesions, which is the basis for dose and duration of chemotherpy on recent Histiocyte Society trials. In this study, we test the hypothesis that distinct subgroups of patients with LCH may be identified by relative levels of circulating biomarkers. Methods Pre-therapy plasma was collected on 97 patients with LCH (82 Pediatric: 17 High-Risk, 23 Multisystem/Multifocal “Non-risk”, 42 Single Lesion “Non-risk”; 15 Adult: 5 High-Risk, 5 Multisystem/Multifocal “Non-risk”, 5 Single Lesion “Non-risk”) and 49 control subjects (32 Pediatric, 17 Adult). Quantitative levels of plasma proteins (158 analytes) was determined by multiplex analysis with Millipore MagPix kits and the Luminex plate reader. Data were analyzed with both unsupervised and supervised methodologies. Results Consensus clustering with non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) clusters identified three groups which were analyzed along with clinical categories. Significant clinical variables included age (adult samples clustered in NMF group 1) and LCH risk category (High-Risk LCH samples clustered in NMF group 3). Samples from patients with the BRAF-V600Emutation or relapse within 1 year did not cluster into any NMF group with signifiance. Additionally, supervised analysis identified specific molecules that were significantly differentially expressed between different clinical categories after multiple testing correction (FDR<0.10): Pediatric LCH vs Adult LCH (72 molecules significant, largest differences in MMP-3, MMP-2 and osteopontin); Pediatric Control vs Pediatric LCH (66 molecules significant, largest differences in SDF-1a, IL-20, MIP-1d, FGF-2 and sIL-4R); Pediatric Low-Risk vs Pediatric High-Risk (47 molecules significant, largest differences in sTNF-R11, sTNF-RI, I-309, sIL2Ra and osteopontin). While previous studies have analyzed expression differences of cytokines in LCH lesions and plasma, in this study the most striking differences are between control vs LCH samples are chemokine molecules. The largest differences between Low-Risk and High-Risk LCH patients include inflammatory cytokines and receptors. Conclusions Despite mounting evidence supporting pathogenesis of LCH as a myeloid neoplasia arising from immature dendritic cell precursors, these results are consistent with exuberant chemokine and cytokine expression in patients with active LCH, supporting a potential role for inflammation in pathogenesis. This study demonstrates the feasibility of identifying novel LCH sub-groups according to plasma protein profiles with unsupervised analysis, and significant differences can be detected in protein levels between clinical risk groups. Future studies will validate the clinical utility of plasma biomarkers in diagnosis, risk-stratification and determining response to therapy. Finally, feasibility of collecting plasma compared to viable lesions makes plasma studies ideal for prospective collection and analysis in cooperative group studies. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

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