Anti-thymocyte globulin could improve the outcome of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in patients with highly aggressive T-cell tumors.

The early experiment result in our hospital showed that anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) inhibited the proliferation of lymphoid tumor cells in the T-cell tumors. We used the ATG as the part of the conditioning regimen and to evaluate the long-term anti-leukemia effect, the safety and complication in the patients with highly aggressive T-cell lymphomas. Twenty-three patients were enrolled into this study. At the time of transplant, six patients reached first or subsequent complete response, three patients had a partial remission and 14 patients had relapsed or primary refractory disease. The conditioning regimen consisted of ATG, total body irradiation, toposide and cyclophosphamide. The complete remission rate after transplant was 95.7%. At a median follow-up time of 25 months, 16 (69.6%) patients are alive and free from diseases, including nine patients in refractory and progressive disease. Seven patients died after transplant, five from relapse and two from treatment-related complications. The incidence of grades II-IV acute graft-vs-host disease (GvHD) was 39.1%. The maximum cumulative incidence of chronic GvHD was 30%. The most frequent and severe conditioning-related toxicities observed in 8 out of 23 patients were grades III/IV infections during cytopenia. Thus, ATG-based conditioning is a feasible and effective alternative for patients with highly aggressive T-cell tumors.

Genetic effect of two polymorphisms in the apolipoprotein A5 gene and apolipoprotein C3 gene on serum lipids and lipoproteins levels in a Chinese population.

Two polymorphisms, apolipoprotein A5 (APOA5) -1131T>C and apolipoprotein C3 (APOC3) -482C>T, were examined in a healthy Chinese group. Analysis of covariance (ancova) showed that both -1131T>C and -482C>T minor alleles were associated with triglyceride (TG)-raising effects (p < 0.001 and p = 0.012, respectively) after adjustment of sex, age, and body mass index (BMI). Moreover, -1131T>C minor alleles were also found to be associated with total cholesterol (TC)-raising effects (p = 0.045). However, the relationship between -482C>T minor alleles and TC-raising effects was not observed after adjustment of sex, age, and BMI. By contrast, significant inverse associations were noted between minor alleles (-1131T>C and -482C>T) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) concentrations (p = 0.021 and p = 0.021, respectively). Linear regression analysis showed that the effects of -1131T>C and -482C>T polymorphisms on TG and HDL-C (0.001 and 0.008; 0.041 and 0.005, respectively) are independent and additive and that -1131T>C can seriously affect the levels of TG (0.001 vs 0.008). The additive effect of the two polymorphisms was confirmed further by haplotype analysis. Our results strongly support that the two single nucleotide polymorphisms, -1131T>C in APOA5 and -482C>T in APOC3, are related to the levels of serum TG and HDL-C and those of other several lipids and lipoproteins in the Chinese population.

[Determination of cholesterol in lipoprotein fractions by agarose gel electrophoresis].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate a single step electrophoresis for quantitative determination of cholesterol of high-, low-, very-low-density lipoprotein(HDL, LDL, VLDL) and fast pre-beta lipoprotein [lipoprotein (a), Lp(a)]. METHODS: Quantification of lipoprotein cholesterol was performed by enzymatic staining of cholesterol in a new agarose gel electrophoresis method that allows the separation of LDL, VLDL, HDL, and Lp(a) by Helena REP system. The results of electrophoresis method were compared with those by traditional method like PTA-Mg2+ precipitation method for HDL-C, PVS precipitation method for LDL-C, and Immunoturbidimetric assay(ITA) method for Lp(a). RESULTS: Within-runs CV were 5.16%-7.46%, 1.26%-3.28% and 3.78%-5.86% for VLDL-C, LDL-C and HDL-C, respectively. Between-runs CV were 8.35%-11.25%, 2.78%-4.08% and 4.23%-6.36%, respectively. The linearity of this method was up to 10.35 mmol/L total cholesterol. The recoveries were 90.3%, 94.3% and 89.6%, respectively. No interference were observed when bilirubin(< 342 mumol/L), hemoglobin(< 20 g/L) or triglyceride(< 11.0 mmol/L) were added to pooled serum, respectively. There was good agreement between methods, with r = 0.9557 for HDL-C(electrophoresis method vs PTA-Mg2+ precipitation method), r = 0.9609 for LDL-C(electrophoresis method vs PVS precipitation method) and r = 0.9235 for Lp(a)-C (electrophoresis method) vs Lp(a) (ITA method). CONCLUSIONS: The electrophoresis method offers a simple and inexpensive means of simultaneously measuring HDL-C, VLDL-C, Lp(a)-C and LDL-C.