Hematology Papers

• Review
  　
• Hydroxyurea Compared with Anagrelide in High-Risk Essential Thrombocythemia
• Long-term outcome of treatment of anemia in MDS with erythropoietin and G-CSF

Review [TOP]

• Current Concepts: Diagnosis from the Blood Smear
  (NEJM, Volume 353:498-507 August 4, 2005 Number 5)
• Drug therapy for acute myeloid leukemia
  (Blood, 15 August 2005, Vol. 106, No. 4, pp. 1154-1163.)
• Advances in the biology and therapy of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: moving toward a molecularly targeted approach
  (Blood 2005;106 1164-1174)
• New approaches for preventing and treating chronic graft-versus-host disease
  (Blood, 1 June 2005, Vol. 105, No. 11, pp. 4200-4206)
• WHO-EORTC classification for cutaneous lymphomas
  (Blood, 15 May 2005, Vol. 105, No. 10, pp. 3768-3785)
• The development of imatinib as a therapeutic agent for chronic myeloid leukemia
  (Blood, 1 April 2005, Vol. 105, No. 7, pp. 2640-2653)

Blood, 1 August 2005, Vol. 106, No. 3, pp. 803-811.
Long-term outcome of treatment of anemia in MDS with erythropoietin and G-CSF

• We report long-term results of treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) with erythropoietin and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF).
• A total of 129 patients were followed up 45 months after last inclusion in the Nordic MDS Group studies.
• Erythroid response rate was 39% and median response duration 23 months (range, 3-116 months or more).
• Complete responders showed longer response duration than partial responders (29 versus 12 months, P = .006).
• The International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS) groups Low/Intermediate-1 (Low/Int-1) had longer response duration than Int-2/High (25 versus 7 months, P = .002).
• The time until 25% developed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) was longer in the good and intermediate predictive groups for erythroid response compared with the poor predictive group (52 versus 13 months, P = .008).
• Only 1 of 20 long-term responders developed AML.
• We assessed the effect on long-term outcome by comparing treated patients with untreated patients selected from the IPSS database using multivariate Cox regression, adjusting for major prognostic variables.
• There was no difference in survival (odds ratio [OR], 0.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.7-1.2; P = .55) or risk of AML evolution (OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 0.7-2.2; P = .40) between treated and untreated patients.
• Patients with high/intermediate probability of response and with IPSS Low/Int-1 show frequent and durable responses without adverse effects on outcome, while other patients should not be considered candidates for this treatment.

Volume 353:33-45 July 7, 2005 Number 1
Hydroxyurea Compared with Anagrelide in High-Risk Essential Thrombocythemia

• Conclusions Hydroxyurea plus low-dose aspirin is superior to anagrelide plus low-dose aspirin for patients with essential thrombocythemia at high risk for vascular events.