Oral clonidine, 0.1 mg/d, is effective against tamoxifen-induced hot flashes in postmenopausal women with breast cancer.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relative contributions of coping, depression, pain and age, in the experience of cancer related fatigue. A total of 353 women treated for primary breast cancer were assessed within one year of diagnosis using the Profile of Mood States, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer Scale. Fatigue was positively associated with depression and pain, but inversely related to age. In contrast to our expectations, fighting spirit was not associated with less fatigue. A relationship between coping style and cancer-related fatigue was found exclusively for 'positive reappraisal', a combination of fighting spirit and fatalism. Detectable only in multivariate analysis together with depression, the results suggest a weak association between coping and fatigue. The relationship between cancer related fatigue, age and coping styles requires further exploration within longitudinal studies.

Summary:Delayed engraftment, graft failure, and adverse transplant-related events have been observed in unrelated umbilical cord blood (UCB) recipients, particularly in those receiving a low leukocyte cell dose and in CML patients. We report the outcomes of two older adult patients with high risk CML who received a low leukocyte cell dose of unmanipulated UCB cells supplemented with ex vivo expanded (AastromReplicell System) UCB cells. Each engrafted promptly and neither patient experienced GVHD or life-threatening infection. Both remain engrafted with cells exclusively of donor origin and are in cytogenetic remission at 19 and 8 months follow-up. Ex vivo expanded UCB cells appear to facilitate hematopoietic recovery and therefore may increase the number of CML patients eligible for unrelated UCB transplant. Bone Marrow Transplantation (2000) 25, 797-799. Keywords: chronic myelogenous leukemia; umbilical cord blood transplant; ex vivo expansion Transplantation of umbilical cord blood (UCB) from related and unrelated donors has been performed in an attempt to increase the number of potential allogeneic stem cell donors. 1,2 The limited availability of unrelated donor UCB units of adequate nucleated cell dose, however, restricts its application in older adult patients. Ex vivo expansion of UCB in small and clinical-scale regulated perfusion experiments (AastromReplicell System, Ann Arbor, MI, USA) has been proven capable of significantly increasing the number of total nucleated cells, CFU-GM, and longterm culture initiating cells. 3 Therefore, the effect of supplementing unrelated donor UCB with ex vivo expanded UCB cells from the same donor was evaluated in two older adult patients with high risk CML and no alternative donor.

No abstract