Patients with localized nasal NK/T-cell lymphomas were better managed with radiotherapy as front-line therapy. The advantage of radiotherapy persisted even as palliative therapy after chemotherapy.

Elderly AML patients should be risk-stratified at diagnosis. Anthracycline-based induction chemotherapy would be the best therapeutic option for such patients.

Gastrointestinal (GI) tract malignancy is one of the important causes of chronic iron deficiency anemia (IDA). The present study was designed to find out the prevalence and the predictive risk factors of malignancy in the IDA patients. We performed a prospective study in 148 patients with chronic IDA. A series of examinations to explore the GI tract were performed either by radiology and/or endoscopy. A Tc-RBC GI bleeding study was also performed, and prevalence and risk factors of malignancy were calculated. Totally 148 patients were enrolled, with mean age 66.2 years; 88 were male. Eighteen patients (12.2%) were found to have malignant tumors. Ten (6.8%) had benign tumors, and 96 (64.9%) had other benign conditions. No lesions could be detected in 24 patients (16.2%). Clinical symptoms and presence of fecal occult blood could not predict malignancy or any GI lesions. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed serum ferritin £10 mg/L, LDH >250 U/L, and aging as the risk factors of malignancy in the IDA patients (P = 0.003, 0.002, and 0.027; and OR = 7.614, 8.955, and 1.062, respectively). An IDA patient with both serum ferritin £10 mg/L and LDH >250 U/L ran a 74.33-times higher risk of malignancy than the patient without (95% CI: 7.115-776.479). Malignancy was an important cause of IDA. High LDH, low serum ferritin, and aging were the risk factors of malignancy in the IDA patients. Am.

An open-label, randomized comparative study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of cefepime (2.0 g q. 8 h) and ceftazidime (2.0 g q. 8 h) in the empiric therapy of febrile neutropenic patients. A total of 45 eligible febrile episodes were randomized (1:1) to be treated with the study regimen. Nineteen febrile episodes treated with cefepime and 22 febrile episodes treated with ceftazidime were evaluable for efficacy. The two groups were comparable in terms of age, sex, height, weight, underlying neoplasm, number of pretherapy neutrophil, duration of neutropenia and types of infections. The overall therapeutic success rate of the cefepime group (53%) was comparable to the ceftazidime group (50%). It did not differ significantly (95% confidence interval: –0.28 to 0.34, p = 0.85). Eighty-eight percent of pathogens in each group were bacteriologically eradicated. The safety profile was similar in both groups. No patients in either group discontinued the therapy because of adverse events. None (0%) of the cefepime patients and 2 (9%) of the ceftazidime patients died of infection. The results of this study suggest that cefepime is an effective and safe agent in the empiric therapy of febrile episodes in neutropenic patients.

In a whole year from July 1997 to June 1998, a total of 50 patients with sonogram-proved venous thrombosis who called on our hematology clinic consecutively entered into the study. Their mean age was 59.1 +/- 17.5 years, range 18-83 years, and 29 were male. A series of examinations were performed in order to find out the cause of venous thrombosis. These examinations included antithrombin, protein C, protein S, plasminogen, heparin cofactor II, activated protein C ratio, factor V Leiden mutation, fibrinogen, factors VIII and XII, euglobulin lysis time, 677 C-->T mutation of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), prothrombin 20210 (PT 20210) A allele mutation, lupus anticoagulant, anticardiolipin antibody, and complete blood count. Five patients (10%) were found to have malignancy; an inferior vena cava thrombosis in one patient was due to venous compression by hydronephrosis; two patients had lupus anticoagulant; two had varicose veins of legs; two had protein C deficiency; four had protein S deficiency; two had plasminogen deficiency; two had antithrombin deficiency. No activated protein C resistance, elevated factor VIII level, factor V Leiden, PT 20210 A allele or heparin cofactor II deficiency was found in the present study. Homozygous MTHFR 677 C-->T gene mutation was found in 7 patients (14%); one of them also had a plasminogen deficiency. No possible risk factor of venous thrombosis could be found in 24 patients (48%). In conclusion, malignancy and protein S deficiency were the most frequent acquired and congenital causes of venous thrombosis in the Chinese, respectively.