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Extensive research over the past 50 years has resulted in significant improvements in survival for patients diagnosed with leukemia. Despite this, a subgroup of patients harboring high-risk genetic alterations still suffer from poor outcomes. There is a desperate need for new treatments to improve survival, yet consistent failure exists in the translation of in vitro drug development to clinical application.
Symptomatic methotrexate-related central neurotoxicity (MTX neurotoxicity) is a severe toxicity experienced during acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) therapy with potential long-term neurologic complications. Risk factors and long-term outcomes require further study.
Invasive fungal disease (IFD) remains a common and serious complication in children treated for leukaemia. Antifungal prescription in children with leukaemia presents unique challenges, particularly due to variation in IFD risk between and within leukaemia treatment protocols, drug toxicities and interactions between antifungals and chemotherapeutic agents.
Rearrangements of the Mixed Lineage Leukemia (MLL/KMT2A) gene are present in approximately 10% of acute leukemias and characteristically define disease with poor outcome.
B lymphopoiesis is characterized by progressive loss of multipotent potential in hematopoi-etic stem cells, followed by commitment to differentiate into B cells, which mediate the humoral response of the adaptive immune system.
The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation and New Zealand Ministry of Health recommend all children aged ≥ 5 years receive either of the two mRNA COVID-19 vaccines: Comirnaty (Pfizer), available in both Australia and New Zealand, or Spikevax (Moderna), available in Australia only. Both vaccines are efficacious and safe in the general population, including children. Children and adolescents undergoing treatment for cancer and immunosuppressive therapy for non-malignant haematological conditions are particularly vulnerable, with an increased risk of severe or fatal COVID-19.
B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL) is characterised by diverse genomic alterations, the most frequent being gene fusions detected via transcriptomic analysis (mRNA-seq). Due to its hypervariable nature, gene fusions involving the Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain (IGH) locus can be difficult to detect with standard gene fusion calling algorithms and significant computational resources and analysis times are required. We aimed to optimize a gene fusion calling workflow to achieve best-case sensitivity for IGH gene fusion detection.
Osteoporosis is a chronic skeletal condition characterized by low bone mass and deteriorated microarchitecture of bone tissue and puts tens of millions of people at high risk of fractures. New therapeutic agents like i-bodies, a class of next-generation single-domain antibodies, are needed to overcome some limitations of conventional treatments.
Infants with KMT2A-rearranged B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have a dismal prognosis. Survival outcomes have remained static in recent decades despite treatment intensification and novel therapies are urgently required.
T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LBL) is a rare and aggressive lymphatic cancer, often diagnosed at a young age. Patients are treated with intensive chemotherapy, potentially followed by a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Although prognosis of T-LBL has improved with intensified treatment protocols, they are associated with side effects and 10-20% of patients still die from relapsed or refractory disease. Given this, the search toward less toxic anti-lymphoma therapies is ongoing.