Frequent Eczematous Dermatitis in Unrelated Cord Blood Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Recipients Compared With Other Donor Types.

We have consistently noticed in our clinical practice eczematous dermatitis (EcD) without other pathologic findings of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in recipients of unrelated cord blood transplantation (CBT). We hypothesized that the incidence of EcD was higher in CBT compared with other donor types, and our objective in this study was to compare the frequency, clinical course, and response to therapy of EcD between CBT and non-CBT recipients. We conducted a retrospective study of 720 consecutive adult recipients of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplants from 2010 to 2016 from any donor type and with follow-up for at least 1 year after transplantation. After using keyword-based automated scanning to identify "eczema," "dermatitis," or "spongiosis" terms in medical records, we retrieved 217 cases for manual record review. We identified 23 EcD cases (12 in CBT recipients and 11 in patients with other types of donors) with a median onset at 8 months after transplantation. The 2-year cumulative incidence of EcD was 20% (95% confidence interval [CI], 11.2% to 31.5%) after CBT and 1.7% (95% CI, .90% to 2.90%) with other types of donors (P < .0001). Fifteen cases had a skin biopsy without distinctive pathologic features of GVHD. The most common EcD-involved sites in CBT recipients were face (75%), neck (50%), and antecubital fossae (50%). Compared with patients with other types of donors, EcD after CBT was more likely to involve three or more sites (10 of 12 vs. 2 of 10; P = .008) and had a more protracted course (lasting >6 months in 6 of 58 vs. 1 of 661; P < .0001). In both groups, EcD responded to topical therapy, and only a few cases required systemic therapy. EcD is a relatively frequent skin condition among recipients of unrelated CBT. Irrespective of donor type, most cases of EcD can be successfully managed with only topical therapy. These findings will help providers recognize EcD, avoid potentially harmful systemic therapy, and better counsel transplant recipients.

Comparative effectiveness of rasburicase versus allopurinol for cancer patients with renal dysfunction and hyperuricemia.

While rasburicase has shown efficacy to rapidly correct hyperuricemia compared with allopurinol, its overall impact in improving clinically significant outcomes, such as acute kidney injury (AKI), in tumor lysis syndrome (TLS) is unknown. In this retrospective cohort study, we included all hospitalized cancer patients with hyperuricemia and AKI who received rasburicase +/- allopurinol or allopurinol alone from 2009 to 2015. Inverse probability of treatment weighting using propensity score was used to account for potential confounders and to estimate the causal effect associated with differential drug treatment. 150 patients met inclusion criteria; 89 received rasburicase +/- allopurinol and 61 received allopurinol alone. Weighted outcome regression analysis demonstrated that rasburicase was associated with significantly lower mean uric acid nadir at 7 days compared to allopurinol (2.70 versus 5.82 mg/dL, p < 0.01). However, likelihood of renal function recovery (OR = 0.90, p = 0.79), creatinine nadir by 7 days (1.80 versus 1.66 mg/dL, p = 0.51), and final creatinine by 30 days (2.08 versus 2.07 mg/dL, p = 0.98) did not significantly differ. In conclusion, the clinical benefit of rasburicase in promoting renal function recovery in cancer patietns with concurrent hyperuricemia and renal failure remains inconclusive. Our results suggest that correction of hyperuricemia as a surrogate endpoint may not be associated with significant renal function improvement, particularly if renal dysfunction is unrelated to TLS.

Utilization patterns and clinical outcomes of rasburicase administration according to tumor risk stratification.

PURPOSE: Current guidelines for tumor lysis syndrome management recommend rasburicase for high-risk patients. Adherence to guidelines has not been well studied, and the correlation between uric acid reduction and clinically relevant outcomes, such as acute kidney injury, remains unclear. Our study aims to describe rasburicase utilization patterns and outcomes in cancer patients with varying risks for tumor lysis syndrome. METHODS: In this retrospective cohort study, we included cancer inpatients who received rasburicase for tumor lysis syndrome management at two affiliated academic hospitals from 2009 to 2015. Patients were classified by tumor lysis syndrome risk categories prior to drug administration. Primary outcomes included acute kidney injury incidence and renal recovery. Secondary outcomes included uric acid nadir, mortality, and hospital length-of-stay. RESULTS: Among 164 patients, 42 (26%) had high-, 63 (38%) had intermediate-, and 59 (36%) had low-risk for tumor lysis syndrome. A total of 94 patients (57%) had existing renal dysfunction prior to rasburicase use. This occurred more frequently in low- (68%) compared to intermediate- (57%) and high- (43%) risk patients (p = 0.044). A greater proportion of patients in the high-risk group (78%) had renal recovery when compared to the intermediate- (61%) or low- (45%) risk groups (p = 0.056). Despite a similar length of stay, the high-risk group had a significantly lower 30-day mortality (10%) when compared to intermediate- (25%) or low- (32%) risk groups (p = 0.029). CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that rasburicase may be frequently prescribed to treat hyperuricemia unrelated to tumor lysis syndrome in cancer patients. Improved education and adherence to guidelines may improve clinical and economic outcomes associated with rasburicase administration.

Validity of Natural Language Processing for Ascertainment of EGFR and ALK Test Results in SEER Cases of Stage IV Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer.

PURPOSE: SEER registries do not report results of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) mutation tests. To facilitate population-based research in molecularly defined subgroups of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), we assessed the validity of natural language processing (NLP) for the ascertainment of EGFR and ALK testing from electronic pathology (e-path) reports of NSCLC cases included in two SEER registries: the Cancer Surveillance System (CSS) and the Kentucky Cancer Registry (KCR). METHODS: We obtained 4,278 e-path reports from 1,634 patients who were diagnosed with stage IV nonsquamous NSCLC from September 1, 2011, to December 31, 2013, included in CSS. We used 855 CSS reports to train NLP systems for the ascertainment of EGFR and ALK test status (reported v not reported) and test results (positive v negative). We assessed sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values in an internal validation sample of 3,423 CSS e-path reports and repeated the analysis in an external sample of 1,041 e-path reports from 565 KCR patients. Two oncologists manually reviewed all e-path reports to generate gold-standard data sets. RESULTS: NLP systems yielded internal validity metrics that ranged from 0.95 to 1.00 for EGFR and ALK test status and results in CSS e-path reports. NLP showed high internal accuracy for the ascertainment of EGFR and ALK in CSS patients-F scores of 0.95 and 0.96, respectively. In the external validation analysis, NLP yielded metrics that ranged from 0.02 to 0.96 in KCR reports and F scores of 0.70 and 0.72, respectively, in KCR patients. CONCLUSION: NLP is an internally valid method for the ascertainment of EGFR and ALK test information from e-path reports available in SEER registries, but future work is necessary to increase NLP external validity.