Bone Marrow Transplantation News

SAN DIEGO — Myeloablative and haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from parental donors that utilized CD34 enrichment and mononuclear cell addback significantly improved health-related quality of life and neurocognition of high-risk patients with sickle cell disease, according to a study presented at ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition.

Four individuals have been elected to American Society of Hematology’s executive committee.

ASH awarded $150,000 each to eight investigators through the society’s bridge grant program, designed to sustain promising hematologic research proposals that are not funded through NIH.

The FDA granted priority review to ruxolitinib for the treatment of patients with acute graft-versus-host disease who have had an inadequate response to corticosteroids, according to the agent’s manufacturer.

Autologous fecal microbiota transplantation appeared safe and effective in a small cohort of patients with cancer who received microbiota-depleting antibiotics during allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, according to results of an open-label, randomized trial published in Science Translational Medicine.

The FDA awarded more than $18 million in grants over the next 4 years to fund clinical trials of medical products intended to treat patients with rare diseases.

Patients who died within 1 year of undergoing inpatient allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation often received medically intense end-of-life care that may not have matched their wishes, according to a retrospective population-based analysis.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, a campaign to spotlight the types of cancer that largely affect children, draw attention to survivorship issues, and raise funds for research and family support.

Patients with myelodysplastic syndrome who had persistent mutations detected in bone marrow samples after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation appeared at increased risk for disease progression, according to an exploratory study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Prophylactic levofloxacin significantly decreased the risk for bacteremia among children receiving intensive chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia or relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia, according to results from a multicenter, open-label, randomized trial.