444 BJID 2005; 9 (October) recently, with the availability of HAART, new approaches to relapsed HIV-related NHL were tried. A prospective trial was published in 2003 on JCO. Sixteen patients with HIV-related NHL or HD were treated sequentially by salvage chemotherapy, followed by mobilization of PBSC with cyclophosphamide and conditioning with BEAM (BCNU, etoposide, Ara-C and melphalan Profiling viral gene expression in lymphomasDirk P. DittmerOne quarter of human cancers are associated with infectious agents such as viruses. Transcriptional profiling of the viral genome offers the chance to accelerate our investigations, diagnosis and staging of viral-associated lymphomas. Since viral genomes are orders of magnitude smaller than the human genome, we have developed whole viral genome arrays based upon real-time quantitative PCR for Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated herpesvirus and Epstein-Barr virus (1). This technology is technologically robust, rapid and inexpensive. Most clinical laboratories and research centers have extensive experience in real-time QPCR, which has become routine for HIV diagnostics and thuas are in a position to use QPCR-based arrays for lymphoma diagnosis. In adopting realtime QPCR to comparative transcription profiling for KSHV we realized that we could feed the real-time QPCR output (the so-called CT value) directly in existing publicly available cluster analysis programs (2). In fact, the initial step in hybridization-based analysis, e.g. Affymatrix is to compute the logarithm of the signal intensity in order to improve statistical performance. The CT values already represent a logarithmic measure of the target concentration and can be used directly. PCR is the most sensitive detection method available today. It is inherently more sensitive than hybridization-based detection methods and we have been able to quantify 96 different viral mRNAs from a 2x2 mm fine-needle KS biopsy or from as little as 5000 FACS sorted cells. Iguaracyra Araujo, Achiléa Bittencourt, Helenemarie S. Barbosa, Tatiana Gil Portugal, Daniel Freitas, Daniela Almeida, Núbia Mendonça, Michael Hummel and Hans-Dieter Foss Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a lymphotropic virus associated with some human malignancies such as endemic Burkitt's lymphoma, Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), AIDS-associated lymphomas. We report the frequency of EBVinfection in pediatric Burkitt's lymphoma (BL), pediatric Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), adulthood HL and AIDS related non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) occurring in Bahia, Brazil. For comparison we described also the frequency of EBV infection in 28 lymphomas not related to HIV-infection and in 40 tonsils from children living in Bahia and EBV-Associated Lymphoma in Bahia, Brazil

Background: The therapeutic value of donor lymphocyte infusions in patients who relapse with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is limited by a low efficacy and the risk of graft-versus-host disease. We aimed at generating leukemia-reactive donor T cells for patients with AML. Methods: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells of the donor were stimulated with mature donor dendritic cells, pulsed with irradiated patient leukemic blasts (LB), or directly with cytokine-treated LB. After 3 weekly stimulations, donor cells were tested for anti-leukemic reactivity in an IFNγ Elispot. Results: In 5 of 6 donors, cells with reactivity against patient LB with low or absent reactivity against non-leukemic cells could be generated. T cell subset analyses in 2 donors indicated that specific anti-leukemic reactivity was mainly mediated by CD4+ T cells, which were also the predominant cell fraction in 4 of 6 donors. One leukemia-reactive donor T cell line was expanded with a recently developed system. One week of expansion resulted in a 10-fold increase in reactivity with sustained specificity of the resulting T cell line. Conclusions: Our results show the feasibility of the in vitro generation of leukemia-reactive donor lymphocytes, rendering this method a promising tool for post-HSCT immunotherapy.

No abstract

No abstract