Adalet Meral Güneş

The EUTOS Long-Term Survival score was tested in 350 children with chronic myeloid leukemia in first chronic phase treated with imatinib and registered in the International Registry for Childhood Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. With a median follow up of 3 years (range, 1 month to 6 years) progression and/or death (whichever came first) occurred in 23 patients. For the entire cohort of patients the 5-year progression-free survival rate was 92% (95% CI: 87%–94%) and the 5-year survival accounting for chronic myeloid leukemia deaths was 97% (95% CI: 94%–99%). Of the 309 patients allocated to low (n=199), intermediate (n=68) and high (n=42) risk groups by the EUTOS Long-Term Survival score, events (progression and/or death) occurred in 6.0%, 8.8% and 26.2%, respectively. Estimates of the 5-year progression-free survival rates according to these three risk groups were 96% (95% CI: 92%–98%), 88% (95% CI: 76%–95%) and 67% (95% CI: 48%–81%), respectively. Differences in progression-free survival according to these risk groups were highly significant (P

Catheter-associated bloodstream infections (CABSIs) are common complications encountered with cancer treatment. The aims of this study were to analyze the factors associated with recurrent infection and catheter removal in pediatric hematology-oncology patients. All cases of CABSIs in patients attending the Department of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology between January 2008 and December 2010 were reviewed. A total of 44 episodes of CABSIs, including multiple episodes involving the same catheter, were identified in 31 children with cancer. The overall CABSIs rate was 7.4 infections per 1000 central venous catheter (CVC) days. The most frequent organism isolated was coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (CONS). The CVC was removed in nine (20.4%) episodes. We found that hypotension, persistent bacteremia, Candida infection, exit-side infection, neutropenia, and prolonged duration of neutropenia were the factors for catheter removal. There were 23 (52.2%) episodes of recurrence or reinfection. Mortality rate was found to be 9.6% in children with CABSIs. In this study, we found that CABSIs rate was 7.4 infections per 1000 catheter-days. CABSIs rates in our hematology-oncology patients are comparable to prior reports. Because CONS is the most common isolated microorganism in CABSIs, vancomycin can be considered part of the initial empirical regimen.

Background Numerous mutations in FGA, FGB or FGG lead to congenital fibrinogen disorders (CFDs), but their epidemiology is not well characterized. The aim of this study was to evaluate the molecular epidemiology of CFD and to develop a genotyping strategy. Methods Genetic data from 266 unrelated CFD patients genotyped at our laboratory and from a CFD open access database (n = 1,142) were evaluated. We developed a step-wise screening strategy for the molecular diagnosis of CFD and prospectively tested this strategy on 32 consecutive CFD probands. Results We identified 345 mutated alleles overall, among 187 heterozygous, 63 homozygous and 16 compound heterozygous individuals. Afibrinogenemia was almost always caused by null mutations (98.6%), mainly in FGA (85%). Hypofibrinogenemia was mainly caused by missense mutations of FGB or FGG (54.2%). Dysfibrinogenemia was almost always caused by heterozygous missense mutations (99.3%) in FGA and FGG. Hotspot mutations were prevalent among quantitative (33.1%) and qualitative fibrinogen disorders (71.1%). The mutational cluster at our laboratory was similar with that reported in the CFD open access database. The proposed step-wise genetic screening strategy proved efficient in both the development and validation samples for CFD: the screening of FGA exons 2, 4, 5 and FGG exon 8 and search for the 11 kb deletion of FGA led to the identification of approximately 80% of mutated alleles, including 15 new mutations. Conclusion The described molecular epidemiology of CFD is complex. The proposed step-wise genetic screening strategy may provide an efficient way to identify causative mutations analysing a minimal number of exons.

OBJECTIVE: The Turkish Society of Pediatric Hematology set up a National Hemoglobinopathy Registry to demonstrate the demographic and disease characteristics of patients and assess the efficacy of a hemoglobinopathy control program (HCP) over 10 years in Turkey. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 2046 patients from 27 thalassemia centers were registered, of which 1988 were eligible for analysis. This cohort mainly comprised patients with β-thalassemia major (n=1658, 83.4%) and intermedia (n=215, 10.8%). RESULTS: The majority of patients were from the coastal areas of Turkey. The high number of patients in Southeastern Anatolia was due to that area having the highest rates of consanguineous marriage and fertility. The most common 11 mutations represented 90% of all β-thalassemia alleles and 47% of those were IVS1-110(G->A) mutations. The probability of undergoing splenectomy within the first 10 years of life was 20%, a rate unchanged since the 1980s. Iron chelators were administered as monotherapy regimens in 95% of patients and deferasirox was prescribed in 81.3% of those cases. Deferasirox administration was the highest (93.6%) in patients aged <10 years. Of the thalassemia major patients, 5.8% had match-related hemopoietic stem cell transplantation with a success rate of 77%. Cardiac disease was detected as a major cause of death and did not show a decreasing trend in 5-year cohorts since 1999. CONCLUSION: While the HCP has been implemented since 2003, the affected births have shown a consistent decrease only after 2009, being at lowest 34 cases per year. This program failure resulted from a lack of premarital screening in the majority of cases. Additional problems were unawareness of the risk and misinformation of the at-risk couples. In addition, prenatal diagnosis was either not offered to or was not accepted by the at-risk families. This study indicated that a continuous effort is needed for optimizing the management of thalassemia and the development of strategies is essential for further achievements in the HCP in Turkey.