(Press-News.org) INDIANAPOLIS -- Researchers from Indiana University, the University of Michigan, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified and validated a biomarker accessible in blood tests that could be used to predict which stem cell transplant patients are at highest risk for a potentially fatal immune response called graft-versus-host disease.
Although transplant specialists have been able to reduce its impact, graft-versus-host disease remains a leading cause of death among patients who receive a stem cell transplant from another person, known as an allogeneic transplant. Such transplants are used to treat blood and bone marrow cancers such as leukemia and multiple myeloma, often as a last resort. Graft-versus-host disease occurs when immune cells from the transplant see the patient's body as foreign and attack it.
Approximately 20,000 allogeneic stem cell transplants were performed worldwide in 2012. Thirty to 40 percent of stem cell transplant recipients whose donor is related will experience graft-versus-host disease. The percentage could rise to 60 to 80 percent if the patient and donor are not related.
The researchers found that patients with a high level of a protein named ST2 were more than twice as likely to have graft-versus-host disease that resisted standard treatment with steroids; and nearly four times as likely to die within six months of the transplant. Their findings were reported in the Aug. 8 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
"What we found particularly significant was that this marker was a better predictor than the clinical severity of the disease when it was diagnosed," said Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine and senior author of the study.
Thus, patients with low ST2 levels were more likely to respond to treatment regardless of how serious their graft-versus-host disease was graded, while patients with high ST2 levels were less likely to respond to treatment, whether their disease was graded less serious or more serious.
"This blood test, which is currently available to clinicians, will make informed treatment possible as the clinicians will now be able to adjust therapy to the degree of risk rather than treating every patient the same way," Dr. Paczesny said.
In addition, while the disease most commonly appears about 30 days after the transplant, higher ST2 levels in blood samples taken as early as 14 days after transplant -- far before the clinical signs of graft-versus-host disease are apparent -- were associated with an increased risk of death from the toxicity of the transplant.
Therefore, the authors noted, early identification of patients who likely won't respond to standard treatments is important and would allow physicians to consider additional therapies and early intervention. On the other hand, patients with low risk will not need to have additional medicine further suppressing their immune system. But, they cautioned, additional large prospective studies are needed to better define the levels of risk predicted by the ST2 marker.
INFORMATION:
Others involved in the research included Mark T. Vander Lugt, M.D., Thomas M. Braun, Ph.D., Aurélie Gomez, M.D., Andrew C. Harris, M.D., John E. Levine, M.D., Sung W. Choi, M.D., Daniel Couriel, M.D., Pavan Reddy, M.D., and James L.M. Ferrara, M.D., D.Sc., of the University of Michigan; Samir Hanash, M.D., Ph.D., Qing Zhang, M.S., Chee-Hong Wong, M.S., Hong Wang, M.S., and Alice Chin, M.S., of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Jerome Ritz, M.D., Vincent T. Ho, M.D., and Joseph H. Antin, M.D., of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Dr. Paczesny is an investigator with the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research and the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center.
The research was funded by grants (RC1HL101102, R01CA168814, P01-CA039542 and T32-HL007622) from the National Institutes of Health.
Scientists identify biomarker to predict immune response risk after stem cell transplants
2013-08-08
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Narrower range of helpful bacteria in guts of C-section infants
2013-08-08
The range of helpful bacteria in the guts of infants delivered by caesarean section, during their first two years of life, is narrower than that of infants delivered vaginally, indicates a small study published online in the journal Gut.
This has implications for the development of the immune system, say the researchers, particularly as the C-section infants had lower levels of the major group of gut bacteria associated with good gut health, Bacteroidetes phylum, as well as chemicals that help curb allergic responses.
The researchers assessed the patterns of bacterial ...
Rheumatoid arthritis heightens risk of dangerous leg and lung blood clots
2013-08-08
Rheumatoid arthritis significantly increases the risk of potentially fatal blood clots in the legs and lungs, reveals a large nationwide study published online in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
Between 11% and 30% of people who develop a blood clot in the legs, known as a deep vein thrombosis or DVT, or a blood clot in the lungs, known as a pulmonary embolism, or PE, die within 30 days of their diagnosis, the evidence suggests.
Several studies have shown that chronic inflammation, which typifies rheumatoid arthritis, is linked to a heightened risk of thickened ...
UW researchers publish study on genome of aggressive cervical cancer that killed Henrietta Lacks, subject of bestselling book
2013-08-08
A team from the University of Washington has unveiled a comprehensive portrait of the genome of the world's first immortal cell line, known as HeLa. The cell line was derived in 1951 from an aggressive cervical cancer that killed Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old African-American tobacco farmer and mother of five – the subject of the 2010 New York Times bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. They will also be the first group to publish under a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) policy for HeLa genomic data, established through discussions with Lacks' family.
The ...
Newly discovered bacterial partnership changes ocean chemistry
2013-08-08
In a discovery that further demonstrates just how unexpected and unusual nature can be, scientists have found two strains of bacteria whose symbiotic relationship is unlike anything seen before.
Long, thin, hairlike Thioploca (meaning "sulfur braids" in Spanish) trichomes form chains down into marine sediment, which tiny anammox cells ride down like an elevator. At the bottom, the anammox cells consume the waste products of the Thioploca: nitrite and ammonium, or "fixed" nitrogen.
Nitrogen is a crucial building block of life, a prerequisite for photosynthesis. While ...
Access to HeLa cell genome data restored following agreement
2013-08-08
BETHESDA, MD -- The first study to sequence and analyze the entire genome of a HeLa cell line, along with access to its sequence data, has been published today (Wednesday, August 7) in its final version, by G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, an open-access, scientific journal of the Genetics Society of America.
The article, "The Genomic and Transcriptomic Landscape of a HeLa Cell Line," by Landry et al., was authored by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and was published in an early online version March 11, 2013.
Genomic ...
Regulating electron 'spin' may be key to making organic solar cells competitive
2013-08-08
Organic solar cells that convert light to electricity using carbon-based molecules have shown promise as a versatile energy source but have not been able to match the efficiency of their silicon-based counterparts.
Now, researchers have discovered a synthetic, high-performance polymer that behaves differently from other tested materials and could make inexpensive, highly efficient organic solar panels a reality.
The polymer, created at the University of Washington and tested at the University of Cambridge in England, appears to improve efficiency by wringing electrical ...
Simple math sheds new light on a long-studied biological process
2013-08-08
One of the most basic and intensively studied processes in biology—one which has been detailed in biology textbooks for decades—has gained a new level of understanding, thanks to the application of simple math to a problem that scientists never before thought could benefit from mathematics.
The scientists who made the discovery, published in this week's advance online publication of Nature, found that the process bacteria use to quickly adapt to metabolize preferred energy sources such as glucose—a process called "catabolite repression"—is controlled not just by glucose, ...
Dogs yawn more often in response to owners' yawns than strangers
2013-08-08
Dogs yawn contagiously when they see a person yawning, and respond more frequently to their owner's yawns than to a stranger's, according to research published August 7 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Teresa Romero and colleagues from the University of Tokyo.
Pet dogs in the study watched their owner or a stranger yawn, or mimic a yawning mouth movement, but yawned significantly more in response to their owners' actions than to the strangers' yawns. The dogs also responded less frequently to the fake movements, suggesting they have the ability to yawn contagiously. ...
Study suggests pattern in lung cancer pathology may predict cancer recurrence after surgery
2013-08-08
NEW YORK, AUGUST 7, 2013 — A new study by thoracic surgeons and pathologists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center shows that a specific pattern found in the tumor pathology of some lung cancer patients is a strong predictor of recurrence. Knowing that this feature exists in a tumor's pathology could be an important factor doctors use to guide cancer treatment decisions.
According to the study's authors, the findings offer the first scientific evidence that may not only help surgeons identify which patients are more likely to benefit from less radical lung-sparing ...
Psoriasis patients at increasing risk for range of serious medical conditions
2013-08-08
PHILADELPHIA - Patients with mild, moderate and severe psoriasis had increasingly higher odds of having at least one major medical disease in addition to psoriasis, when compared to patients without psoriasis. Reporting findings in JAMA Dermatology, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, concluded that the severity of disease, as measured by the percentage of body surface area affected by psoriasis, was strongly linked to an increased presence of other diseases affecting the lungs, heart, kidneys, liver and pancreas.
The research ...