Clinical Analysis of 41 Patients with Burkitt's lymphoma / 中国实验血液学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To summarize the clinical characteristics of Burkitt's lymphoma.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Clinical data of 41 Burkitt's lymphoma patients, treated from Jannuary 2009 to June 2014 in Chinese PLA General Hospital, were analyzed retrospectively.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Out of the 41 patients, 33 were males and 8 were females, with a median age of 13 (range, 1-67), 18 cases (43.9%) were in Ann Arbor stage I/II, and 23 cases (56.1%) were in stage III/IV. The commonest pathologicalal sites were head and neck (23 cases, 56.1%), and then the abdominal (41.5%), bone marrow (22.0%) and central nervous system (22.0%) could also be involved, while 7 cases (17.1%) were patients transformed into acute lymphocytic leukemia-type L3, 18% cases (3/16) were infected by EBV and 29.9% cases (6/38) were infected by HBV, 29 cases were treated with chemotherapy, their overal remission rate was 93.1(27/29 cases), 2-year overall survival rate(OS) was 83.3%(10/12 cases); 13 cases were treated with rituximab, their remission rate was 92.3%(12/13 cases), and 2-year OS was 66.7%(4/6 cases).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The 41 cases are more similar to the sporadic Burkitt's lymphoma, but the median age of its occurence is more younger, while the most common pathological sites are head and neck, and the short-term and high intensive chemotherapy with rituximab can obviously elevate remission rate for adult patients and prolong their survival time.</p>

Demethylating agent decitabine induces autologous cancer testis antigen specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes in vivo / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Cancer testis antigens (CTAs) are a novel group of tumor associated antigens. Demethylating agent decitabine was reported to be able to up-regulate CTAs through its hypomethylation mechanism, thus enhance the immunogenicity of leukemia cells. However, few researches have ever focused on the questions that whether this immunostimulatory effect of decitabine could induce autologous CTA specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) in vivo, and if so, whether this effect contributes to disease control. In this study, we aimed to show that decitabine could induce specific autologous CTLs against some mouse CTAs in leukemia cells in vitro and in vivo.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Several mouse CTAs were screened by RT-PCR. CTL specific to one of the CTAs named P1A was detected and sorted by P1A specific dimer by flow cytometry. The activity of specific CTLs was measured by real time RT-PCR.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>We firstly screened expression of some CTAs in mouse leukemia cells before and after decitabine treatment and found that decitabine treatment did up-regulate expression of many CTAs. Then we measured the CTLs' activity specific to a mouse CTA P1A in vivo and showed that this activity increased after decitabine treatment. Finally, we sorted these in vivo induced P1A specific CTLs by flow cytometry and demonstrated their cytotoxicity against decitabine treated leukemia cells.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Our study showed the autologous immune response induced by decitabine in vivo. And more importantly, we firstly proved that this response may contribute to disease control. We believe that this immunostimulatory effect is another anti-cancer mechanism of decitabine, and this special effect would inspire new applications of decitabine in the field of leukemia treatment in the future.</p>