Induction-related mortality in adolescents and young adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in a resource-limited setting: do treatment-related complications create more impact than disease biology?

Background@#Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a malignant clonal bone marrow disorder with a high mortality rate during the initial therapy. This retrospective study aimed to describe and analyze the risk factors and causes of induction-related mortality (IRM) in an adolescent and adult ALL population treated in a low- and middle-income country. @*Methods@#From 2009 to 2016, a total of 167 patients were included, of which 50.9% were male with a median age of 28 years. B-immunophenotype represented 97.6%, and high-risk cytogenetics were present in 23.3%. During induction therapy, 91% had at least 1 complication, most of which were infectious, with an IRM of 12%. @*Results@#Factors associated with increased mortality rate were central nervous system (CNS) status [CNS-3: hazard ratio (HR) 3.029; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.79‒11.49; P =0.103 and CNS-2: HR, 9.98; 95% CI, 2.65‒37.65; P =0.001] and dialysis requirement (HR, 9.15; 95% CI, 2.44‒34.34; P =0.001). @*Conclusion@#Our study confirms that ALL patients treated in resource-constrained settings have high rates of IRM, mainly attributed to advanced disease and high tumor burden at diagnosis.

Sequence comparison of six human microRNAs genes between tuberculosis patients and healthy individuals

Objective/Background: MicroRNAs [miRNAs] play an important role in diseases development. Therefore, human miRNAs may be able to inhibit the survival of Mycobacterium tuberculosis [Mtb] in the human host by targeting critical genes of the pathogen. Mutations within miRNAs can alter their target selection, thereby preventing them from inhibiting Mtb genes, thus increasing host susceptibility to the disease

Methods: This study was undertaken to investigate the genetic association of pulmonary tuberculosis [TB] with six human miRNAs genes, namely, hsa-miR-370, hsa-miR-520d, hsamiR- 154, hsa-miR-497, hsa-miR-758, and hsa-miR-593, which have been predicted to interact with Mtb genes. The objective of the study was to determine the possible sequence variation of selected miRNA genes that are potentially associated with the inhibition of critical Mtb genes in TB patients

Results: The study did not show differences in the sequences compared with healthy individuals without antecedents of TB

Conclusion: This result could have been influenced by the sample size and the selection of miRNA genes, which need to be addressed in future studies