Measurable residual disease, FLT3-ITD mutation, and disease status have independent prognostic influence on outcome of allogeneic stem cell transplantation in NPM1-mutated acute myeloid leukemia

Nucleophosmin-1 (NPM1) mutations in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) confer a survival advantage in the absence of FLT3-internal tandem duplication (FLT3-ITD). Here, we investigated the main predictors of outcome after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HCT). We identified 1572 adult (age &gt;= 18 year) patients with NPM1-mutated AML in first complete remission (CR1:78%) or second complete remission (CR2:22%) who were transplanted from matched sibling donors (30.8%) or unrelated donors (57.4%) between 2007 and 2019 at EBMT participating centers. Median follow-up for survivors was 23.7 months. FLT3-ITD was present in 69.3% of patients and 39.2% had detectable minimal/measurable residual disease (MRD) at transplant. In multivariate analysis, relapse incidence (RI) and leukemia-free survival (LFS) were negatively affected by concomitant FLT3-ITD mutation (HR 1.66 p = 0.0001, and HR 1.53, p &lt; 0.0001, respectively), MRD positivity at transplant (HR 2.18, p &lt; 10(-5) and HR 1.71, p &lt; 10(-5), respectively), and transplant in CR2 (HR 1.36, p = 0.026, and HR 1.26, p = 0.033, respectively), but positively affected by Karnofsky score &gt;= 90 (HR 0.74, p = 0.012, and HR 0.7, p = 0.0002, respectively). Overall survival (OS) was also negatively influenced by concomitant FLT3-ITD (HR 1.6, p = 0.0001), MRD positivity at transplant (HR 1.61, p &lt; 10(-5)), and older age (HR 1.22 per 10 years, p &lt; 0.0001), but positively affected by matched sibling donor (unrelated donor: HR 1.35, p = 0.012; haploidentical donor: HR 1.45, p = 0.037) and Karnofsky score &gt;= 90 (HR 0.73, p = 0.004). These results highlight the independent and significant role of FLT3-ITD, MRD status, and disease status on posttransplant outcomes in patients with NPM1-mutated AML allowing physicians to identify patients at risk of relapse who may benefit from posttransplant prophylactic interventions.</p

The Changing Landscape for Stroke\ua0Prevention in AF: Findings From the GLORIA-AF Registry Phase 2

Background GLORIA-AF (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation) is a prospective, global registry program describing antithrombotic treatment patterns in patients with newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation at risk of stroke. Phase 2 began when dabigatran, the first non\u2013vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC), became available. Objectives This study sought to describe phase 2 baseline data and compare these with the pre-NOAC era collected during phase&nbsp;1. Methods During phase 2, 15,641 consenting patients were enrolled (November 2011 to December 2014); 15,092 were eligible. This pre-specified cross-sectional analysis describes eligible patients\u2019 baseline characteristics. Atrial fibrillation&nbsp;disease characteristics, medical outcomes, and concomitant diseases and medications were collected. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results Of the total patients, 45.5% were female; median age was 71 (interquartile range: 64, 78) years. Patients were from Europe (47.1%), North America (22.5%), Asia (20.3%), Latin America (6.0%), and the Middle East/Africa (4.0%). Most had high stroke risk (CHA2DS2-VASc [Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age&nbsp; 6575 years, Diabetes mellitus, previous Stroke, Vascular disease, Age 65 to 74 years, Sex category] score&nbsp; 652; 86.1%); 13.9% had moderate risk (CHA2DS2-VASc&nbsp;= 1). Overall, 79.9% received oral anticoagulants, of whom 47.6% received NOAC and 32.3% vitamin K antagonists (VKA); 12.1% received antiplatelet agents; 7.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. For comparison, the proportion of phase 1 patients (of N&nbsp;= 1,063 all eligible) prescribed VKA was 32.8%, acetylsalicylic acid 41.7%, and no therapy 20.2%. In Europe in phase 2, treatment with NOAC was more common than VKA (52.3% and 37.8%, respectively); 6.0% of patients received antiplatelet treatment; and 3.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. In North America, 52.1%, 26.2%, and 14.0% of patients received NOAC, VKA, and antiplatelet drugs, respectively; 7.5% received no antithrombotic treatment. NOAC use was less common in Asia (27.7%), where 27.5% of patients received VKA, 25.0% antiplatelet drugs, and 19.8% no antithrombotic treatment. Conclusions The baseline data from GLORIA-AF phase 2 demonstrate that in newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients, NOAC have been highly adopted into practice, becoming more frequently prescribed than VKA in&nbsp;Europe and North America. Worldwide, however, a large proportion of patients remain undertreated, particularly in&nbsp;Asia&nbsp;and North America. (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation [GLORIA-AF]; NCT01468701

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

Global, regional, and national burden of disorders affecting the nervous system, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BackgroundDisorders affecting the nervous system are diverse and include neurodevelopmental disorders, late-life neurodegeneration, and newly emergent conditions, such as cognitive impairment following COVID-19. Previous publications from the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor Study estimated the burden of 15 neurological conditions in 2015 and 2016, but these analyses did not include neurodevelopmental disorders, as defined by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-11, or a subset of cases of congenital, neonatal, and infectious conditions that cause neurological damage. Here, we estimate nervous system health loss caused by 37 unique conditions and their associated risk factors globally, regionally, and nationally from 1990 to 2021.MethodsWe estimated mortality, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs), years of life lost (YLLs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), with corresponding 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs), by age and sex in 204 countries and territories, from 1990 to 2021. We included morbidity and deaths due to neurological conditions, for which health loss is directly due to damage to the CNS or peripheral nervous system. We also isolated neurological health loss from conditions for which nervous system morbidity is a consequence, but not the primary feature, including a subset of congenital conditions (ie, chromosomal anomalies and congenital birth defects), neonatal conditions (ie, jaundice, preterm birth, and sepsis), infectious diseases (ie, COVID-19, cystic echinococcosis, malaria, syphilis, and Zika virus disease), and diabetic neuropathy. By conducting a sequela-level analysis of the health outcomes for these conditions, only cases where nervous system damage occurred were included, and YLDs were recalculated to isolate the non-fatal burden directly attributable to nervous system health loss. A comorbidity correction was used to calculate total prevalence of all conditions that affect the nervous system combined.FindingsGlobally, the 37 conditions affecting the nervous system were collectively ranked as the leading group cause of DALYs in 2021 (443 million, 95% UI 378–521), affecting 3·40 billion (3·20–3·62) individuals (43·1%, 40·5–45·9 of the global population); global DALY counts attributed to these conditions increased by 18·2% (8·7–26·7) between 1990 and 2021. Age-standardised rates of deaths per 100 000 people attributed to these conditions decreased from 1990 to 2021 by 33·6% (27·6–38·8), and age-standardised rates of DALYs attributed to these conditions decreased by 27·0% (21·5–32·4). Age-standardised prevalence was almost stable, with a change of 1·5% (0·7–2·4). The ten conditions with the highest age-standardised DALYs in 2021 were stroke, neonatal encephalopathy, migraine, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, diabetic neuropathy, meningitis, epilepsy, neurological complications due to preterm birth, autism spectrum disorder, and nervous system cancer.InterpretationAs the leading cause of overall disease burden in the world, with increasing global DALY counts, effective prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation strategies for disorders affecting the nervous system are needed

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Comprehensive Review of AL amyloidosis: some practical recommendations

International audienceAmyloid light chain (AL) amyloidosis is among the more common and more severe of the amyloidoses usually involving the slow proliferation of a bone-marrow-residing plasma cell (PC) clone and the secretion of unstable immunoglobulin-free light chains (FLC) that infiltrate peripheral tissues and result in detrimental end-organ damage. Disease presentation is rather vague, and the hallmark of treatment is early diagnosis before irreversible end-organ damage. Once diagnosed, treatment decision is transplant-driven whereby ~20% of patients are eligible for autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) with or without bortezomib-based induction. In the setting of ASCT-ineligibility, bortezomib plays a central role in upfront treatment with the recent addition of daratumumab to the current emerging standard of care. In general, management of AL amyloidosis is aimed at achieving deep, durable responses with very close monitoring for early detection of relapse/refractory disease. This article provides a comprehensive review of the management of patients with AL amyloidosis including goals of therapy, current treatment guidelines in the setting of both ASCT-eligibility and ineligibility, treatment response monitoring recommendations, toxicity management, and treatment of relapse/refractory disease

Allogeneic stem-cell transplantation with sequential conditioning in adult patients with refractory or relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia: a report from the EBMT Acute Leukemia Working Party

Treatment of relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (RR-ALL) remains a clinical challenge with generally dismal prognosis. Allogeneic stem-cell transplantation using sequential conditioning (FLAMSA-like) has shown promising results in relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia, but little is known about its efficacy in RR-ALL. We identified 115 patients (19-66 years) with relapsed (74%) or primary-refractory (26%) ALL allografted from matched related (31%), matched unrelated (58%), or haploidentical donor (11%). Median follow-up was 37 (13-111) months. At day 100, cumulative incidences of grade II-IV/III-IV acute graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD) were 30% and 17%, respectively. Two-year cumulative incidence of chronic GVHD was 25% with 11% extensive cases. Two-year relapse incidence (RI) was 45%, non-relapse mortality was 41%. Two-year leukemia free survival (LFS) was 14%, overall survival (OS) 17%, and GVHD relapse-free survival (GRFS) was 14%. In multivariable analysis, Karnofsky score <90 negatively affected RI, LFS, OS, and GRFS. Conditioning with chemotherapy alone, compared with total body irradiation (TBI) negatively affected RI (HR = 3.3; p = 0.008), LFS (HR = 1.94; p = 0.03), and OS (HR = 2.0; p = 0.03). These patients still face extremely poor outcomes, highlighting the importance of incorporating novel therapies (e.g., BITE antibodies, inotuzumab, CAR-T cells). Nevertheless, patients with RR-T-cell ALL remain with an unmet treatment need, for which TBI-based sequential conditioning could be one of few available options