Clinical outcomes of pomalidomide-based and daratumumab-based therapies in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma: A real-world cohort study in China.

BACKGROUND: Comparative investigations evaluating the efficacy of pomalidomide-based (Pom-based) versus daratumumab-based (Dara-based) therapies in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) remain scarce, both in randomized controlled trials and real-world studies. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study included 140 RRMM patients treated with Pom-based or Dara-based or a combination of pomalidomide and daratumumab (DPd) regimens in a Chinese tertiary hospital between December 2018 and July 2023. RESULTS: The overall response rates (ORR) for Pom-based (n = 48), Dara-based (n = 68), and DPd (n = 24) groups were 57.8%, 84.6%, and 75.0%, respectively (p = 0.007). At data cutoff on August 1, 2023, the median progression-free survival (PFS) was 5.7 months (95% CI: 5.0-6.5) for the Pom-based group, 10.5 months (5.2-15.8) for the Dara-based group, and 6.7 months (4.0-9.3) for the DPd group (p = 0.056). Multivariate analysis identified treatment regimens (Dara-based vs. Pom-based, DPd vs. Pom-based) and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (ECOG PS) as independent prognostic factors for PFS. In the subgroups of patients aged >65 years, with ECOG PS ≥2, lines of therapy ≥2, extramedullary disease or double-refractory disease (refractory to both lenalidomide and proteasome inhibitors), the superiority of Dara-based regimens over Pom-based regimens was not evident. A higher incidence of infections was observed in patients receiving Dara-based and DPd regimens (Pom-based 39.6% vs. Dara-based 64.7% vs. DPd 70.8%, p = 0.009). CONCLUSIONS: In real-world settings, Pom-based, Dara-based, and DPd therapies exhibited favorable efficacy in patients with RRMM. Dara-based therapy yielded superior clinical response and PFS compared to Pom-based therapy.

Review of Droplet Printing Technologies for Flexible Electronic Devices: Materials, Control, and Applications.

Flexible devices have extensive applications in areas including wearable sensors, healthcare, smart packaging, energy, automotive and aerospace sectors, and other related fields. Droplet printing technology can be utilized to print flexible electronic components with micro/nanostructures on various scales, exhibiting good compatibility and wide material applicability for device production. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current research status of droplet printing technologies and their applications across various domains, aiming to offer a valuable reference for researchers in related areas.

Impact of AML1/ETO Fusion on the Efficacy of Venetoclax Plus Hypomethylating Agents in Newly Diagnosed Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

BACKGROUND: AML1/ETO fusion confers favorable prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treated with intensive chemotherapy (IC). However, the impact of AML1/ETO fusion on the efficacy of venetoclax in the treatment of AML is unclear. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of venetoclax plus hypomethylating agents (VEN/HMAs) in patients with AML1/ETO-positive AML. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with newly diagnosed AML in two centers were reviewed and divided into three cohorts: AML1/ETO-positive AML treated with frontline VEN/HMA (Cohort A), AML1/ETO-negative AML treated with frontline VEN/HMA (Cohort B), or AML1/ETO-positive AML treated with frontline IC (Cohort C). The response and survival were compared between the cohorts. RESULTS: A total of 260 patients were included in the study. Patients in Cohort A had a significantly lower overall response rate (ORR) than patients in Cohort B (40.9% vs 71.2%, p = 0.005). The median event-free survival (EFS) in Cohort A and Cohort B was 2.7 months and 7.7 months, respectively, with no significant difference. The ORR and median EFS in Cohort C were 80.8% and 14.9 months, respectively, which were significantly superior to those in Cohort A, and the advantages remained significant after propensity score matching. ORR and EFS in KIT-mutated patients with AML1/ETO-positive AML receiving VEN/HMA were much inferior to those in KIT wild-type patients (ORR 0.0% vs 81.8%, p = 0.001; EFS 1.2 months vs not reached, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Newly diagnosed AML patients with AML1/ETO fusion had a poor response to frontline VEN/HMA treatment. When determining induction therapy for patients with AML1/ETO-positive AML, IC should be preferred over VEN/HM.

Identification and dynamic monitoring of electrospinning jet assisted by coaxial laser.

The accurate and rapid detection and recognition of jet features are key to dynamic monitoring and online control of the electrospinning process. In this study, a real-time recognition system based on OpenCV was introduced into a coaxial laser-assisted electrospinning system to solve the difficulties of accurate jet recognition and to promote an image processing algorithm response. The jet images with laser assistance were more clearly visible than those without laser assistance, and a significant contrast in grayscale levels existed in the jet image to help distinguish jet features. Subsequently, separate algorithms were designed for the jet visible length calculation, and the recognized visible length of the jet and algorithm running speed were compared. The average visible length of the jet with laser assistance was 11.49 mm, which increased by 1.59 mm compared to that without laser assistance. In addition, the running time of the algorithm with laser assistance was 24.89 ms, reduced by 14.84 ms compared to that without laser assistance, indicating the effectiveness of laser assistance to promote the accuracy and running speed of the jet image recognition process. Additionally, real-time detection of the jet angles was achieved to identify instances of excessive deflection during the electrospinning process. Overall, this study has significant potential to promote the dynamic monitoring of an electrospinning jet.

A Dual-Mode Pressure and Temperature Sensor.

The emerging field of flexible tactile sensing systems, equipped with multi-physical tactile sensing capabilities, holds vast potential across diverse domains such as medical monitoring, robotics, and human-computer interaction. In response to the prevailing challenges associated with the limited integration and sensitivity of flexible tactile sensors, this paper introduces a versatile tactile sensing system capable of concurrently monitoring temperature and pressure. The temperature sensor employs carbon nanotube/graphene conductive paste as its sensitive material, while the pressure sensor integrates an ionic gel containing boron nitride as its sensitive layer. Through the application of cost-effective screen printing technology, we have successfully manufactured a flexible dual-mode sensor with exceptional performance, featuring high sensitivity (804.27 kPa-1), a broad response range (50 kPa), rapid response time (17 ms), and relaxation time (34 ms), alongside exceptional durability over 5000 cycles. Furthermore, the resistance temperature coefficient of the sensor within the temperature range of 12.5 °C to 93.7 °C is -0.17% °C-1. The designed flexible dual-mode tactile sensing system enables the real-time detection of pressure and temperature information, presenting an innovative approach to electronic skin with multi-physical tactile sensing capabilities.

Ethyl cellulose/gelatin/ß-cyclodextrin/curcumin nanofibrous membrane with antibacterial and formaldehyde adsorbable capabilities for lightweight and high-performance air filtration.

Functionalization of bio-based nanofibers is the development tendency of high-performance air filter. However, the conventional structural optimization strategy based on high solution conductivity greatly hinders the development of fully bio-based air filter, and not conducive to sustainable development. This work fabricated fully bio-based nanofibrous membrane with formaldehyde-adsorbable and antibacterial capabilities by electrospinning low-conductivity solution for high-performance air filtration and applied to lightweight mask. The "water-like" ethyl cellulose (EC) was selected as the base polymer to "nourish" functional materials of gelatin (GE), ß-cyclodextrin (ßCD), and curcumin (Cur), thus forming a solution system with high binding energy differences and electrospinning into ultrafine bimodal nanofibers. The filtration efficiency for 0.3 µm NaCl particles, pressure drop, and quality factor were 99.25 %, 53 Pa, and 0.092 Pa-1, respectively; the bacteriostatic rates against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were 99.9 % and 99.4 %, respectively; the formaldehyde adsorption capacity was 442 µg/g. This is the first report on antibacterial and formaldehyde-adsorbable high-performance air filter entirely made from bio-based materials. This simple strategy will greatly broaden the selection of materials for preparing high-performance multifunctional air filter, and promote the development of bio-based air filter.

Radial magnetic resonance image reconstruction with a deep unrolled projected fast iterative soft-thresholding network.

Radially sampling of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an effective way to accelerate the imaging. How to preserve the image details in reconstruction is always challenging. In this work, a deep unrolled neural network is designed to emulate the iterative sparse image reconstruction process of a projected fast soft-threshold algorithm (pFISTA). The proposed method, an unrolled pFISTA network for Deep Radial MRI (pFISTA-DR), include the preprocessing module to refine coil sensitivity maps and initial reconstructed image, the learnable convolution filters to extract image feature maps, and adaptive threshold to robustly remove image artifacts. Experimental results show that, among the compared methods, pFISTA-DR provides the best reconstruction and achieved the highest PSNR, the highest SSIM and the lowest reconstruction errors.

Evaluation of the diagnostic utility on 1.5T and 3.0T 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy for temporal lobe epilepsy.

BACKGROUND: 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) can be used to study neurological disorders because it can be utilized to examine the concentrations of related metabolites. However, the diagnostic utility of different field strengths for temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to make quantitative comparisons of metabolites of TLE at 1.5T and 3.0T and evaluate their efficacy. METHODS: Our retrospective collections included the single-voxel 1H-MRS of 23 TLE patients and 17 healthy control volunteers (HCs) with a 1.5T scanner, as well as 29 TLE patients and 17 HCs with a 3.0T scanner. Particularly, HCs were involved both the scans with 1.5T and 3.0T scanners, respectively. The metabolites, including the N-acetylaspartate (NAA), creatine (Cr), and choline (Cho), were measured in the left or right temporal pole of brain. To analyze the ratio of brain metabolites, including NAA/Cr, NAA/Cho, NAA/(Cho + Cr) and Cho/Cr, four controlled experiments were designed to evaluate the diagnostic utility of TLE on 1.5T and 3.0T MRS, included: (1) 1.5T TLE group vs. 1.5T HCs by the Mann-Whitney U Test, (2) 3.0T TLE group vs. 3.0T HCs by the Mann-Whitney U Test, (3) the power analysis for the 1.5T and 3.0T scanner, and (4) 3.0T HCs vs. 1.5T HCs by Paired T-Test. RESULTS: Three metabolite ratios (NAA/Cr, NAA/Cho, and NAA/(Cho + Cr) showed the same statistical difference (p < 0.05) in distinguishing the TLE from HCs in the bilateral temporal poles when using 1.5T or 3.0T scanners. Similarly, the power analysis demonstrated that four metabolite ratios (NAA/Cr, NAA/Cho, NAA/(Cho + Cr), Cho/Cr) had similar distinction abilities between 1.5T and 3.0T scanner, denoting both 1.5T and 3.0T scanners were provided with similar sensitivities and reproducibilities for metabolites detection. Moreover, the metabolite ratios of the same healthy volunteers were not statistically different between 1.5T and 3.0T scanners, except for NAA/Cho (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: 1.5T and 3.0T scanners may have comparable diagnostic potential when 1H-MRS was used to diagnose patients with TLE.

Follicular helper T cell: Emerging roles in lymphomagenesis.

Follicular helper T cells (Tfh) are a subset of CD4+ T cells that are fundamental to forming germinal centers, which are the primary sites of antibody affinity maturation and the proliferation of activated B cells. Tfh cells have been extensively studied over the past 10 years, especially regarding their roles in cancer genesis. This review describes the characteristics of normal Tfh cells and focuses on the emerging link between Tfh cells and lymphomagenesis. Advances in lymphoma genetics have substantially expanded our understanding of the role of Tfh cells in lymphomagenesis. Moreover, we detail a range of agents and new therapies, with a major focus on chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy; these novel approaches may offer new treatment opportunities for patients with lymphomas.

Comparative study of bilateral putamen for patients with severe Parkinson's disease detected by 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Background: The diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) is challenging because the clinical symptoms overlap with other neurodegenerative diseases. The discovery of reliable biomarkers is highly expected to facilitate clinical diagnosis. Through the analysis of the 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) in the putamen, the purpose of the study was to discuss the possibility of the difference in metabolite concentrations between the left and right putamen as biomarkers for patients with severe PD. Methods: We collected 1H-MRS of unilateral or bilateral putamen from 41 patients and used the independent sample t-test and paired t-test to analyze 4 metabolite concentrations, including choline (Cho), total N-acetyl aspartate (tNAA), total creatine (tCr), and combined glutamate and glutamine; Bonferroni correction was used to correct P values for multiple comparisons. We designed 4 controlled experiments as follows: (I) PD patients versus healthy controls (HCs) in the left putamen; (II) PD patients versus HCs in the right putamen; (III) the left putamen versus the right putamen for PD patients; and (IV) the left putamen versus the right putamen for HCs. Results: No statistically significant differences (P>0.05) were detected among 4 metabolites in the ipsilateral and bilateral putamen for the PD and HCs groups, except for tCr in the left putamen (PD 6.426±0.557, HCs 6.026±0.460, P=0.046) for ipsilateral comparisons. Conclusions: In the bilateral putamen of severe PD patients, there was no statistically significant difference in the 4 metabolites. The difference (P<0.05) in tCr in the left putamen might be a potential biomarker to distinguish HCs from severe patients in clinic. This might provide a reference for the clinical diagnosis and acquisition strategy of 1H-MRS in severe PD.

Coaxial Electrospun Tai Chi-Inspired Lithium-Ion Battery Separator with High Performance and Fireproofing Capacity.

Organic flame-retardant-loaded battery separator offers a new opportunity for battery safety. However, its poor thermal stability still poses serious safety issues. Inspired by Tai Chi, an "internal-cultivating and external-practicing" core-shell nanofibrous membrane was prepared by coaxial electrospinning, wherein the shell layer was a mixture of polyvinylidene fluoride, silicon dioxide (SiO2), and graphene oxide (GO) and the core layer contained triphenyl phosphate (TPP). SiO2 and GO enhanced the thermal stability and electrochemical performance. The encapsulated TPP prevented heat transfer and the degradation of electrochemical performance caused by its direct dissolution. This separator exhibited outstanding thermal stability and flame retardancy: it did not burn and remained relatively intact (91.2%) in an open flame for 15 s. The battery assembled with a composite separator showed excellent performance: the initial capacity reached 164 mA h/g and maintained 95% after 100 charge-discharge cycles. This novel strategy endows high-performance lithium batteries with relatively higher safety.

Adaptive Fuzzy Modal Matching of Capacitive Micromachined Gyro Electrostatic Controlling.

A fuzzy PI controller was utilized to realize the modal matching between a driving and detecting model. A simulation model was built to study electrostatic decoupling controlling technology. The simulation results show that the modal matching can be gained by the fuzzy PI controller. The frequency difference between the driving mode and the detection mode is less than 1 Hz, and the offset of the input DC is smaller than 0.6 V. The optimal proportionality factor and integral coefficient are 1.5 and 20, respectively. The fuzzy PI controlling technology provides a good way for the parameter optimization to gain modal matching of micro gyro, via which the detecting accuracy and stability can be improved greatly.

[Efficacy and Safety of Plerixafor Combined with G-CSF for Autologous Peripheral Blood Hematopoietic Stem Cell Mobilization in Lymphoma Patients].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the efficacy and safety of plerixafor combined with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) in mobilizing peripheral blood hematopoietic stem cells in patients with lymphoma. METHODS: The clinical data of lymphoma patients who received autologous hematopoietic stem cell mobilization using plerixafor combined with G-CSF from January 2019 to December 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. The patients received 3 kinds of mobilization regimens: front-line steady-state mobilization, preemptive intervention, and recuse mobilization. The acquisition success rate, excellent rate of collection, and incidence of treatment-related adverse reaction were counted. The influence of sex, age, disease remission status, bone marrow involvement at diagnosis, chemotherapy lines, number of chemotherapy, platelet count and number of CD34+ cells on the day before acquisition in peripheral blood on the collection results were analyzed to identify the risk factors associated with poor stem cell collection. RESULTS: A total of 43 patients with lymphoma were enrolled, including 7 cases who received front-line steady-state mobilization, 19 cases who received preemptive intervention, and 17 cases who received recuse mobilization. The overall acquisition success rate was 58.1% (25/43) after use of plerixafor combined with G-CSF, and acquisition success rate of front-line steady-state mobilization, preemptive intervention, and recuse mobilization was 100%, 57.9%(11/19), and 41.2%(7/17), respectively. The excellent rate of collection was 18.6%(8/43). A total of 15 patients experienced mild to moderate treatment-related adverse reactions. The number of CD34+ cells < 5 cells/µl in peripheral blood on the day before collection was an independent risk factor affecting stem cell collection. CONCLUSIONS: Plerixafor combined with G-CSF is a safe and effective mobilization regimen for patients with lymphoma. The number of CD34+ cells in peripheral blood on the day before collection is an predictable index for the evaluation of stem cell collection.

A convergence analysis for projected fast iterative soft-thresholding algorithm under radial sampling MRI.

Radial sampling is a fast magnetic resonance imaging technique. Further imaging acceleration can be achieved with undersampling but how to reconstruct a clear image with fast algorithm is still challenging. Previous work has shown the advantage of removing undersampling image artifacts using the tight-frame sparse reconstruction model. This model was further solved with a projected fast iterative soft-thresholding algorithm (pFISTA). However, the convergence of this algorithm under radial sampling has not been clearly set up. In this work, the authors derived a theoretical convergence condition for this algorithm. This condition was approximated by estimating the maximal eigenvalue of reconstruction operators through the power iteration. Based on the condition, an optimal step size was further suggested to allow the fastest convergence. Verifications were made on the prospective in vivo data of static brain imaging and dynamic contrast-enhanced liver imaging, demonstrating that the recommended parameter allowed fast convergence in radial MRI.

Fast on-off controlling of electrohydrodynamic printing based on AC oscillation induced voltage.

Stability control of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing technology is urgent needed for efficient fabrication of flexible electronics. In this study, a new fast on-off controlling technology for micro droplets of EHD is proposed by applying an AC induced voltage. The suspending droplet interface is broken through quickly, and the impulse current can be significantly reduced from 527.2 to 50.14 nA, which greatly reduces its negative impact on jet stability. What's more, time interval of jet generation can be shortened by a factor of three, while not only significantly improving the uniformity of the droplets, but effectively reducing the droplet size from 195 to 104 µm. Moreover, the controllable and mass formation of micro droplets are realized, but also the structure of each droplet is able to be controlled independently, which promoted the development of EHD printing technology in more fields.

State Recognition of Multi-Nozzle Electrospinning Based on Image Processing.

The online monitoring of a multi-jet electrospinning process is critical to the achievement of stable mass electrospinning for industrial applications. In this study, the construction of an ejection state recognition system of a multi-jet electrospinning process based on image processing is reported. The ejection behaviors regarding multi-nozzle electrospinning were recorded by CMOS industrial cameras in real time. The characteristic information regarding the multi-jet cone tip was obtained by processing the images regarding Roberts operator edge detection, Hough transform line detection, and mask histogram analysis. The jet anomalies of the hanging droplets in the nozzle outlet area could be obtained and identified by the vision. The identification accuracy towards the target hanging droplets was more than 85%. This work reports the intelligent control of large-scale multi-nozzle electrospinning equipment.

Numerical Simulation of Motion and Distribution Characteristics for Electrospray Droplets.

Electrospray is a typical technology to prepare large amounts of droplets at micro/nano scale. Establishing the relationship between the processing parameters and the motion and distribution characteristics for electrospray droplets is an effective approach to guide the uniform deposition of the electrospray membrane. In this paper, a dynamic model of electrospray droplets based on the fully resolved direct numerical simulation (FR-DNS) method was constructed, and the spatial motion behaviors of charged droplets were simulated. The coupling effect of electric field force, the charge repulsive force, and the gravity on the motion and distribution of electrospray droplets was studied, and the relationship between processing parameters including the applied voltage and distance from the nozzle to the collecting plate and the spatial distribution of charged droplets was clarified in a direct way. The simulation model provided a good approach for the quantitative description of the motion and distribution behaviors for electrospray droplets, which would help to guide the control of the electrospray jet ejection process.

Cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus infection during daratumumab treatment in patients with multiple myeloma.

ABSTRACTSWe explored the incidence of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections in 131 patients with multiple myeloma (MM), 53 of whom received daratumumab (Dara) treatments. The Dara group had more RRMM patients than the group without Dara. CMV infection was significantly more common in patients treated with Dara (16.98%) than in patients treated with regimens without Dara (2.56%). During Dara treatments, 24.53% of patients developed CMV and/or EBV infections. Patients who developed infections had significantly lower levels of albumin and lymphocytes in their peripheral blood. The median time from the first Dara infusion to infection was 27 days. We observed NK cell depletion and T cell expansion during Dara-treatment. Patients with CMV and/or EBV infections had significantly lower numbers of NK cells, total T cells, and CD8 + T cells at 1 month, and lower numbers of CD8 + T cells at 2 months after the first Dara infusion than those without infections.

The efficacy of residual plerixafor for second-day stem cell mobilization in multiple myeloma patients.

BACKGROUND: Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) plus plerixafor has been shown to improve the efficacy of peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) mobilization, however, due to its high price, the use of plerixafor is limited in China. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of residual plerixafor for second-day stem cell mobilization in multiple myeloma (MM) patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this single-center retrospective study, 69 MM patients received G-CSF + plerixafor to mobilize PBSCs, which were collected from 28 patients only for one day and 41 patients for two days. Some of the patients received residual plerixafor, and PBSCs were collected on the second day. The data on the characteristics, different doses of plerixafor and efficacy of PBSC mobilization were collected and analyzed. RESULTS: After 1 or 2 apheresis procedures, 85.5% of patients collected more than 2 × 106 cells/kg PBSCs. There was no statistically significant difference in the success rate of CD34 + PBSC mobilization with the different doses of plerixafor on the first day, but the higher residual plerixafor dose resulted in better success rates on the second day (P＜0.001). Among the patients who collected PBSCs for two days, the level of the CD34 + cell yield of 24 patients (58.5%) changed better, which was significantly correlated with the dose of residual plerixafor on the second day (P = 0.001). DISCUSSION: These results suggested that the administration of residual plerixafor to mobilize stem cells on the second day is an economical, efficient and clinically feasible method.

Analysis of High-Risk Extramedullary Relapse Factors in Newly Diagnosed MM Patients.

Extramedullary relapse of multiple myeloma (MM) is often resistant to existing treatments, and has an extremely poor prognosis, but our understanding of extramedullary relapse is still limited. The incidence, clinical characteristics, impact on the prognosis of extramedullary relapse, and the risk factors for extramedullary relapse in NDMM patients were analyzed. Among the 471 NDMM patients, a total of 267 patients had disease relapse during follow-up, including 64 (24.0%) patients with extramedullary relapse. Extramedullary relapse was more common in patients with younger age, IgD subtype, elevated LDH, extensive osteolytic lesions, extramedullary involvement, and spleen enlargement at the time of MM diagnosis. Survival analysis showed that extramedullary relapse patients had significantly worse median OS than patients with relapse but without extramedullary involvement (30.8 months vs. 53.6 months, p = 0.012). Multivariate analysis confirmed that elevated LDH (OR = 2.09, p = 0.023), >2 osteolytic lesions (OR = 3.70, p < 0.001), extramedullary involvement (OR = 3.48, p < 0.001) and spleen enlargement (OR = 2.27, p = 0.011) at the time of MM diagnosis were independent risk factors for extramedullary relapse in NDMM patients. Each of the above four factors was assigned a value of 1 to form the extramedullary relapse prediction score, and the 3-year extramedullary relapse rates of patients in the 0−2 and 3−4 score groups were 9.0 % and 76.7 %, respectively. This study suggested that extramedullary relapse was associated with poor clinical characteristics and poor prognosis in NDMM patients. The extramedullary relapse prediction score model composed of LDH, osteolytic lesions, extramedullary involvement and spleen enlargement has a better ability to predict extramedullary relapse than the existing ISS and R-ISS stages.