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Aeromonads are gram-negative opportunistic bacteria, mainly found in aquatic environments. Hematologic patients are particularly at risk of Aeromonas soft tissue infections and septicemia, especially during chemotherapy-induced neutropenia. A 46-year-old man was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia characterized by the rare t(12;17)(p13;q21)/TAF15-ZNF384 aberration. On day 22 of chemotherapy, he developed febrile neutropenia followed by necrotizing fasciitis in his upper right extremity. Despite appropriate antibiotic therapy and prompt surgical intervention, he died within 36 h after the appearance of a fever. A multi-sensitive Aeromonas hydrophila was isolated from all cultural sites. In a previous paper we characterized the patient's aberration with cytogenetic and FISH analysis. Here, we provide details regarding the patient's rapidly progressing infection and underline the importance of maintaining high clinical suspicion of Aeromonas infections in acute leukemia. Given the unusually rapid progression of an infection caused by a rare non-resistant pathogen, and after considering data on the implication of metalloproteinase function in immune system regulation, a correlation between risk of severe infection and TAF15-ZNF384 aberrated acute lymphoblastic leukemia cannot be ruled out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study related to concordance and efficacy of Latent Tuberculosis Infection (LTBI) detection with tuberculin skin test (TST) and Quantiferon TB Gold in Tube test (QFT-GIT) in patients with hematologic diseases. Topics discussed include consistent with prior pulmonary tuberculosis in patients, patients that tested negative with QFT-GIT were positive by TST and no correlation while testing TST positivity against categorical variables such as sex.

The role of latent Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection in the pathogenesis of low-grade B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (B-NHL) has not been studied. We therefore investigated the incidence of latent EBV infection in a group of patients with leukemic low-grade B-NHL, as well as the incidence of viral latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1) oncoprotein expression in the same patient group. Furthermore, in an attempt to elucidate the role of this viral oncoprotein in non-EBV-related lymphomas, we correlated the expression of LMP1 with the level of oxidative stress, a parameter related to apoptosis. In the present study we detected lower levels of oxidative stress in the sera of LMP1-positive patients. This possibly implies an anti-apoptotic role of this viral oncoprotein in low-grade B cell lymphomas. However, LMP1 expression status did not affect expression of the major anti-apoptotic gene BCL-2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mastocytosis is amyeloproliferative neoplasmcharacterized by clonal expansion of abnormalmast cells, ranging fromthe cutaneous forms of the disease to mast cell leukemia. In a significant proportion of patients, systemic mastocytosis (SM) coexists with another hematologic malignancy, termed systemic mastocytosis with an associated hematologic nonmast cell lineage disorder (SM-AHNMD). Despite the pronounced predominance of concomitant myeloid neoplasms, the much more unusual coexistence of lymphoproliferative diseases has also been reported. Imatinib mesylate (IM) has a role in the treatment of SM in the absence of the KITD816Vmutation. In the setting of SM-AHNMD, eradicating the nonmast cellmalignant clone greatly affects prognosis. We report a case of an adult patientwith SMassociatedwith B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL).Three cases of concurrent adult ALL and mastocytosis have been reported in the literature, one concerning SM and two concerning cutaneous mastocytosis (CM), as well as six cases of concomitant CM and ALL in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]