Background-Recent studies have demonstrated the significant prognostic value of stress cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) myocardial perfusion imaging. Apart from characterizing reversible perfusion defect (RevPD) from flowlimiting coronary stenosis, CMR late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging is currently the most sensitive method for detecting subendocardial infarction (MI). We therefore tested the hypothesis that characterization of these 2 processes from coronary artery disease by CMR can provide complementary prognostic values. Methods and Results-We performed CMR myocardial perfusion imaging followed by LGE imaging on 254 patients referred with symptoms of myocardial ischemia.

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells are ineffective antigen-presenting cells (APCs) although CD40-activated CLL cells can stimulate proliferation of autologous and allogeneic T cells. We examined the antigen-presenting capacity of CD40-activated CLL cells as well as dendritic cells pulsed with apoptotic bodies of CLL cells to generate autologous and allogeneic immune responses against CLL cells. Both APC types were capable of generating T-cell lines that proliferate specifically in response to unstimulated CLL cells. Whereas cytotoxic responses against stimulated and unstimulated CLL cells could be repeatedly generated by allogeneic healthy donors, autologous cytotoxic immune responses against CD40-activated and native CLL cells were rarely detected. However, T cells isolated from patients with CLL could recognize and lyse allogeneic stimulated and unstimulated CLL cells, demonstrating that cytotoxic T cells from these tumor-bearing patients are functionally intact.