2013-03-07
Welcome to “This Week in Blood,” a weekly snapshot of the hottest studies from each week’s issue of Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), hand-picked by Blood Editor-in-Chief Bob Löwenberg, MD, and Deputy Editor Nancy Berliner, MD. If you would like a PDF copy of any of the manuscripts highlighted below or would like to request an interview with the author, please email aslesinski@hematology.org.
Neutrophil differentiation into a unique hybrid population exhibiting dual phenotype and functionality of neutrophils and dendritic cells, Matsushima et al.
Emergence, origin, and function of neutrophil-dendritic cell hybrids in experimentally induced inflammatory lesions in mice, Geng et al.
Two manuscripts appearing this week in Blood report the first in vivo identification of a new population of dendritic cells, a neutrophil-dendritic cell hybrid, in mice. This work extends previously published studies on the functional plasticity of neutrophils which may differentiate into these hybrid cells and reports on the adaptive immune capabilities of this major granulocyte subset. Both manuscripts describe the function of a new population of hybrid neutrophil-dendritic cells that appear to have an important role in inflammation.
Anagrelide compared to hydroxyurea in WHO-classified essential thrombocythemia: the ANAHYDRET Study, a randomized controlled trial, Gisslinger et al.
This large, multicenter, randomized study contributes substantial knowledge that supports the clinical utility of anagrelide as an effective second-line agent for the treatment of high risk essential thrombocythemia.
Aberrant T-cell antigen (TCA) expression in classical Hodgkin lymphoma is associated with decreased event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS), Venkataraman et al.
This manuscript, which details the results of the largest Western study of its kind, examines T-cell antigen expression on Reed-Sternberg cells in tissue sections of classical Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), providing important evidence underscoring the utility of daily T-cell antigen testing and use in clinical trials to further stratify patients. Manuscript data are the first to demonstrate an adverse impact of T-cell antigen expression on overall and progression-free survival of HL patients.
CD19+CD21low B-cells and patients at risk for NIH-defined chronic graft-versus-host disease with bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome, Kuzmina et al.
This work addresses an extremely relevant topic to clinical practice: the identification of biomarkers of bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS), a severe and common complication of allogeneic stem cell transplantation emerging as part of chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). In this well-designed prospective trial, the authors followed the natural history of bronchiolitis obliterans and correlated subsets of B-cells to the development of BOS. The observation that patients with BOS carry a higher percentage of immature transitional B-cells advances our understanding of chronic GVHD pathophysiology and offers a potential early and novel diagnostic biomarker of BOS.
Blood (www.bloodjournal.org), the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field of hematology, is available weekly in print and online. Blood is the official journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) (www.hematology.org), the world’s largest professional society concerned with the causes and treatment of blood disorders.
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