Acute promyelocytic leukemia is the first malignant disease highly curable with targeted therapy directed at a unique molecular abnormality. The characteristic bleeding diathesis is the most notorious manifestation of the disease, which historically has accounted for a high mortality rate during induction. Acute promyelocytic leukemia is one of the few hematologic diseases that must be recogniz...

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDSs) are clonal stem cell disorders characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis leading to blood cytopenias, and by a high incidence of progression to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The pathophysiology of MDS is a multistep process involving genetic changes detectable by conventional cytogenetic techniques or smaller anomalies detectable only by more sophisticated meth...

Although the last decade has seen the development of effective targeted therapies for patients with multiple myeloma (MM), the clinical utility of targeted therapies has been hampered by the development of drug resistance, clonal evolution, and disease progression, making the quest for cure ever more elusive for MM. However, one may argue that the concept of initiating therapy at the time of sy...

Tand B-cell subtypes of prolymphocytic leukemia (PLL) are rare, aggressive lymphoid malignancies with characteristic morphologic, immunophenotypic, cytogenetic, and molecular features. Recent studies have highlighted the role of specific oncogenes, such as TCL-1, MTCP-1, and ATM in the case of T-cell and TP53 mutations in the case of B-cell prolymphocytic leukemia. Despite the advances in the u...

“Langerhans cell histiocytosis” (LCH) describes a spectrum of clinical presentations ranging from a single bone lesion or trivial skin rash to an explosive disseminated disease. Regardless of clinical severity, LCH lesions share the common histology of CD1a/CD207 dendritic cells with characteristic morphology among an inflammatory infiltrate. Despite historical uncertainty defining LCH as infla...

The description of hairy cell leukemia as a specific clinical entity was published 50 years ago. The clinical outcome for patients was hampered by ineffective chemotherapy, and splenectomy was the major therapeutic approach to improve peripheral blood counts. The median survival after diagnosis was 4 years. With the introduction of -interferon in 1984, marked improvements in patient responses w...

The population on renal replacement therapy (RRT) currency, but rather describes the approach to probhas become older and beset by more co-morbidity than lems by thinking citizens in a given society and, for was thought possible when dialysis was introduced. each of us, is influenced by our religious beliefs and About half of the stock is over the normal retirement by the different ethical cons...

Approximately one-third of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer present with localized disease confined to the ovaries or pelvis (International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics [FIGO] stages I and II). Although their long-term prognosis is better (10-year survival 50%–70%) than that of patients with advanced ovarian cancer (10-year survival 15%–25%), approximately 50% of women with ea...

Recent multicenter studies have clarified the molecular basis underlying the different von Willebrand disease (VWD) types, all of which are caused by the deficiency and/or abnormality of von Willebrand factor (VWF). These studies have suggested a unifying pathophysiologic concept. The diagnosis of VWD, remains difficult because its clinical and laboratory phenotype is very heterogeneous and may...