0000000000969488
AUTHOR
S. Ingrao
Value of bone marrow biopsy in the diagnosis of essential thrombocythemia.
Background and Objectives. Essential thrombocythemia (ET) is a Philadelphia chromosome-negative chronic myeloproliferative disorder (CMPD) whose diagnosis, according to the Polycythemia Vera Study Group (PVSG) criteria, does not include histopathological data. The new WHO classification of CMPD has supplied new diagnostic guidelines which highlight the value of histopathology and facilitate a more precise differentiation of ET from reactive conditions and other CMPD. Design and Methods. Bone marrow biopsies from 142 adult patients diagnosed with ET according to PVSG criteria were evaluated using the new WHO classification. Megakaryocyte morphology and arrangement, amount of fibrosis and a c…
P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 as a potential target for humoral immunotherapy of multiple myeloma.
Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), successfully adopted in the treatment of several haematological malignancies, have proved almost ineffective in multiple myeloma (MM), because of the lack of an appropriate antigen for targeting and killing MM cells. Here, we demonstrate that PSGL1, the major ligand of P-Selectin, a marker of plasmacytic differentiation expressed at high levels on normal and neoplastic plasma cells, may represent a novel target for mAb-mediated MM immunotherapy. The primary effectors of mAb-induced cell-death, complement-mediated lysis (CDC) and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), were investigated using U266B1 and LP1 cell-lines as models. Along with immunolo…
HEPATIC STEATOSIS IS ASSOCIATED WITH SEVERE FIBROSIS IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC HEPATITIS B
Background and aim: Steatosis and insulin resistance (IR) are the major disease modifying in patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC). Only few studies evaluated these features in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). We aimed to assess the prevalence and the characteristics of steatosis and IR in CHB patients, compared to CHC subjects, and to evaluate the potential association between these features and fibrosis severity. Material and methods: 170 consecutive patients with CHB (28 HBeAg positive, 128 HBeAg negative, and 14 HBeAg negative/anti-HDV positive), and 170 sex, age and BMI matched genotype 1 CHC patients were evaluated by liver biopsy and metabolic measurements, including IR, by…