Rituximab added to conditioning regimen significantly improves erythroid engraftment in major incompatible ABO-group hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

ABO-group major incompatibility hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) increases the risk of delayed red cell engraftment and other immunological complications. In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of pre-transplant infusion of rituximab in patients with ABO-incompatibility in improving red blood cell engraftment after HSCT, measured by time to reach transfusion independence. We performed a retrospective, single-center study including 131 consecutive patients transplanted with major or bidirectional ABO-incompatible grafts between 1st January 2013 and 31st December 2019. Fifty-one patients received an infusion of rituximab during the conditioning regimen, while 80 patients did not receive any additional preventive treatment. Time to transfusion independence was significantly reduced for patients treated with rituximab (1 month, 95% CI, 0.5-2) compared with the control group (3.2 months, 95% CI 1.5-3.2, p = 0.02). By multivariable analysis, rituximab use was associated with a faster red blood cell (RBC) engraftment (RR 1.88, 95% CI 1.17-3.03, p = 0.009), while a pre-transplant anti-donor isohemagglutinins titer >1:128 was associated with delayed transfusion independence (RR 0.61, 95% CI 0.37-0.99, p = 0.05). Although limited by the retrospective nature of the study, the results of this analysis suggest that rituximab added to conditioning regimens is feasible, safe, and able to improve post-transplant red blood cell engraftment.

Lymphoblastic Lymphoma: a Concise Review.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Lymphoblastic lymphoma (LBL) is a rare, highly aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma variant virtually indistinguishable from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We review the advancements in diagnostics, staging, treatment, and response assessment. RECENT FINDINGS: T-LBL displays a mediastinal mass with pleuro-pericardic effusions as key distinctive features and is far more frequent than B-LBL. LBL is exquisitely sensitive to ALL-type chemotherapy, achieving cure rates in the order of 70% in adults and even more in children. Positron-emission tomography, genetic risk classifications, and minimal disseminated/residual disease assays are increasingly used to detect occult sites of involvement and predict treatment outcome. Stem cell transplantation is effective and should be considered for very high-risk subsets and/or at salvage. Although curable in the majority of patients, about 25-30% of adults with LBL patients experience resistance or relapse following first-line therapy. It is essential to identify these cases early on and to explore new modalities of precision medicine with targeted agents.

Convalescent hyperimmune plasma for chemo-immunotherapy induced immunodeficiency in COVID-19 patients with hematological malignancies.

During the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak, patients with defective immunity after chemo-immunotherapy due to hematological disorders showed prolonged symptoms and worse prognosis of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia, probably due to inadequate adaptive immune response and noneffective viral clearance. We describe a single-center series of hematological immunocompromised patients undergoing passive immunization with hyperimmune plasma for persistent COVID-19 symptoms. In all cases, such treatment was well tolerated and contributed to clinical and radiological improvement and recovery; viral clearance was also achieved in a patients' subset. Although requiring further investigation, these results suggest a specific role for hyperimmune plasma administration in hematological patients.

Epstein-Barr Virus-Induced Metabolic Rearrangements in Human B-Cell Lymphomas.

Tumor metabolism has been the object of several studies in the past, leading to the pivotal observation of a consistent shift toward aerobic glycolysis (so-called Warburg effect). More recently, several additional investigations proved that tumor metabolism is profoundly affected during tumorigenesis, including glucose, lipid and amino-acid metabolism. It is noticeable that metabolic reprogramming can represent a suitable therapeutic target in many cancer types. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was the first virus linked with cancer in humans when Burkitt lymphoma (BL) was described. Besides other well-known effects, it was recently demonstrated that EBV can induce significant modification in cell metabolism, which may lead or contribute to neoplastic transformation of human cells. Similarly, virus-induced tumorigenesis is characterized by relevant metabolic abnormalities directly induced by the oncoviruses. In this article, the authors critically review the most recent literature concerning EBV-induced metabolism alterations in lymphomas.