Andrea Mirabile, Ezra Pound e l’arte italiana

Recensione di Ezra Pound e l’arte italiana, di Andrea Mirabile (Olschki, 2018).Review of Ezra Pound e l’arte italiana, by Andrea Mirabile (Olschki, 2018)

“What Dante means to me”

The paper takes its title from a lecture given by T.S. Eliot in 1950, in which he pointed out the lessons Dante had taught him. In fact Dante remains Eliot’s chief model and point of reference throughout his work. His first collections present characters and encounters reminiscent of Dante’s dialogues with the damned and purging souls in the afterlife. Eliot saw in Dante “the great master of the disgusting”, authorizing his own descent into the sordid world of the Sweeney poems of 1920. But Dante is also a guide to an earthly paradise, to bliss and acquiescence in God’s will – states of mind approached in the poems written after Eliot’s conversion, which are meditative soliloquies rather than confrontations with others. In Dante Eliot detected, surprisingly, “the Catholic philosophy of disillusion”, that is, his own somber view of fallen humanity. This position is shared to some extent by Robert Frost (whose characters are often in pain, and whose worldview is dark, if ironic). Other modernists, like Wallace Stevens and Ezra Pound, are more optimistic about the pursuit of worldly happiness, and so come well within Protestant tradition. Dante is barely alluded to by Stevens, who attempted to write as if there were no precedent, while the entire project of Pound’s Cantos is Dantean, even in the violence of their denunciations and maddening topicality, as well as in their recurrent revelations of a proximate paradise.The paper takes its title from a lecture given by T.S. Eliot in 1950, in which he pointed out the lessons Dante had taught him. In fact Dante remains Eliot’s chief model and point of reference throughout his work. His first collections present characters and encounters reminiscent of Dante’s dialogues with the damned and purging souls in the afterlife. Eliot saw in Dante “the great master of the disgusting”, authorizing his own descent into the sordid world of the Sweeney poems of 1920. But Dante is also a guide to an earthly paradise, to bliss and acquiescence in God’s will – states of mind approached in the poems written after Eliot’s conversion, which are meditative soliloquies rather than confrontations with others. In Dante Eliot detected, surprisingly, “the Catholic philosophy of disillusion”, that is, his own somber view of fallen humanity. This position is shared to some extent by Robert Frost (whose characters are often in pain, and whose worldview is dark, if ironic). Other modernists, like Wallace Stevens and Ezra Pound, are more optimistic about the pursuit of worldly happiness, and so come well within Protestant tradition. Dante is barely alluded to by Stevens, who attempted to write as if there were no precedent, while the entire project of Pound’s Cantos is Dantean, even in the violence of their denunciations and maddening topicality, as well as in their recurrent revelations of a proximate paradise

Anticancer drugs repurposed for Alzheimer’s disease: a systematic review

Background: The relationship between cancer and dementia is triggering growing research interest. Several preclinical studies have provided the biological rationale for the repurposing of specific anticancer agents in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and a growing number of research protocols are testing their efficacy and safety/ tolerability in patients with AD. Methods: The aim of the present systematic review was to provide an overview on the repurposing of approved anticancer drugs in clinical trials for AD by considering both ongoing and completed research protocols in all phases. In parallel, a systematic literature review was conducted on PubMed, ISI Web, and the Cochrane Library to identify published clinical studies on repurposed anticancer agents in AD. Results: Based on a structured search on the ClinicalTrials.gov and the EudraCT databases, we identified 13 clinical trials testing 11 different approved anticancer agents (five tyrosine kinase inhibitors, two retinoid X receptor agonists, two immunomodulatory agents, one histone deacetylase inhibitor, and one monoclonal antibody) in the AD continuum. The systematic literature search led to the identification of five published studies (one phase I, three phase II, and one phase IIb/III) reporting the effects of antitumoral treatments in patients with mild cognitive impairment or AD dementia. The clinical findings and the methodological characteristics of these studies are described and discussed. Conclusion: Anticancer agents are triggering growing interest in the context of repurposed therapies in AD. Several clinical trials are underway, and data are expected to be available in the near future. To date, data emerging from published clinical studies are controversial. The promising results emerging from preclinical studies and identified research protocols should be confirmed and extended by larger, adequately designed, and high-quality clinical trials

Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation Compared with Chemotherapy for Poor-Risk Hodgkin Lymphoma

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High feasibility and antileukemic efficacy of fludarabine, cytarabine, and idarubicin (FLAI) induction followed by risk-oriented consolidation: A critical review of a 10-year, single-center experience in younger, non M3 AML patients

About 105 consecutive acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients treated with the same induction-consolidation program between 2004 and 2013 were retrospectively analyzed. Median age was 47 years. The first induction course included fludarabine (Flu) and high-dose cytarabine (Ara-C) plus idarubicin (Ida), with or without gemtuzumab-ozogamicin (GO) 3 mg/m2 (FLAI-5). Patients achieving complete remission (CR) received a second course without fludarabine but with higher dose of idarubicin. Patients not achieving CR received an intensified second course. Patients not scheduled for early allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (HSCT) where planned to receive at least two courses of consolidation therapy with Ara-C. Our double induction strategy significantly differs from described fludarabine-containing regimens, as patients achieving CR receive a second course without fludarabine, to avoid excess toxicity, and Ara-C consolidation is administrated at the reduced cumulative dose of 8 g/m2 per cycle. Toxicity is a major concern in fludarabine containing induction, including the recent Medical Research Council AML15 fludarabine, cytarabine, idaraubicin and G-CSF (FLAG-Ida) arm, and, despite higher anti-leukemic efficacy, only a minority of patients is able to complete the full planned program. In this article, we show that our therapeutic program is generally well tolerated, as most patients were able to receive subsequent therapy at full dose and in a timely manner, with a 30-day mortality of 4.8%. The omission of fludarabine in the second course did not reduce efficacy, as a CR rate of 83% was achieved and 3-year disease-free survival and overall survival (OS) were 49.6% and 50.9%, respectively. Our experience shows that FLAI-5/Ara-C + Ida double induction followed by risk-oriented consolidation therapy can result in good overall outcome with acceptable toxicity. Am. J. Hematol. 91:755\u2013762, 2016. \ua9 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Intrabone Transplant of Cord Blood Stem Cells Establishes a Local Engraftment Store: A Functional PET/FDG Study

Background. Despite advancements in comprehension of molecular mechanisms governing bone marrow (BM) homing of hematopoietic stem cells, cord blood transplant (CBT) suffers from a slow rate of hematopoietic recovery. Intrabone (IB) injection has been proposed as a method able to improve speed of BM engraftment with respect to conventional IV protocols. However, the mechanisms underlying this benefit are largely unknown. Aim. To verify whether IB-CBT determines a local engraftment able to predict the reconstitution of recipient hematopoiesis. Design and Methods. Twenty-one patients with hematologic malignancies received IB injection into both iliac crests of 3.2±0.68 * 107/kg cord blood cells. One month following IB-CBT, PET-CT imaging was performed. Maximal standardized uptake values (SUVs) were assessed in BM of both iliac crests and in all lumbar vertebrae. Results. Maximal SUV within iliac crests was higher than in lumbar vertebrae (4.1±1.7 versus 3.2±0.7, resp., P=0.01). However, metabolic activity in these two different BM districts was significantly correlated (r=0.7, P<0.001). Moreover, FDG uptake values within the injection site closely predicted platelet recovery 100 days after IB-CBT (r=0.72, P<0.01). Conclusions. The metabolic activity of injected BM predicts the subsequent rate of hematopoietic recovery after IB-CBT, suggesting a pivotal role of the local engraftment in the reconstitution of recipient hematopoiesis

Haploientical Transplants with Post-Transplant Cyclophosphamide for Relapsed or Refractory Hodgkin Lymphoma: The Role of Comorbidity Index and Pretransplant Positron Emission Tomography

Disease relapse remains an unmet medical need for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) receiving an allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). With the aim of identifying patients at high risk for post-transplant relapse, we retrospectively reviewed 41 HL patients who had received haploidentical (haplo) nonmyeloablative (NMA) HCT with high dose post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PT-Cy) for graft-versus-host (GVHD) prophylaxis. Primary refractory disease, relapse within 6 months from autologous stem cell transplantation, age, pretransplant chemotherapy, HCT comorbidity index (HCT-CI), sex mismatch, tumor burden and pretransplant fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) status, assessed by Deauville score, were analyzed as variables influencing outcomes. All but 1 patient engrafted: median time to neutrophil and platelet recovery was 15 (interquartile range, 13 to 23) days and 19 (interquartile range, 12 to 28) days, respectively. Cumulative incidence of severe (grade III to IV) acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and 3-year moderate-severe chronic GVHD was 2.4% and 11.8%, respectively. The 3-year overall (OS), progression free (PFS), and graft relapse-free survival (GRFS) were 75.6%, 43.9%, and 39%, respectively. On multivariate analysis, 3-year OS was significantly worse in patients with HCT-CI 653 (hazard ratio [HR], 5.0; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1 to 21.8; P\u202f=\u202f.03). Three-year relapse rate, 3-year PFS, and 3-year GRFS were significantly worse in patients with HCT-CI 653 (HR, 3.5; 95% CI, 1.3 to 9.3; P = .01; HR, 3.3; 95% CI, 1.2 to 9.0; P\u202f=\u202f.02; and HR, 4.2; 95% CI, 1.7 to 9.9; P\u202f=\u202f.001, respectively) and in patients with a Deauville score 654 on pretransplant FDG-PET (HR, 4.4; 95% CI, 1.6-12.4; P\u202f=\u202f.005, HR, 3.8; 95% CI, 1.5 to 9.7; P\u202f=\u202f.005; and 3.2; 95% CI, 1.3 to 7.9; P\u202f=\u202f.01, respectively). On univariate analysis, 3-year NRM was significantly worse only in patients with a HCT-CI 653 (HR, 17.6; 95% CI, 1.4 to 221.0). Among relapsed or refractory HL patients undergoing haplo NMA HCT with PT-Cy, pretransplant FDG-PET with a Deauville score 654 and HCT-CI 653 identified patients at high risk of relapse. Moreover, an HCT-CI 653 was associated with higher NRM and lower OS

Steroid treatment of acute graft-versus-host disease grade I: A randomized trial

Patients with acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) grade I were randomized to an observation arm (n=85) or to a treatment arm (n=86) consisting of 6-methylprednisolone 1 mg/kg/day, after stratification for age and donor type. The primary end point was development of grade II-IV GvHD. The cumulative incidence of grade II-IV GvHD was 50% in the observation arm and 33% in the treatment arm (P=0.005). However, grade III-IV GvHD was comparable (13% vs. 10%, respectively; P=0.6), and this was true for sibling and alternative donor transplants. Moderate/severe chronic GvHD was also comparable (17% vs. 9%). In multivariate analysis, an early interval between transplant and randomization

feasibility and outcome of haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation with post transplant high dose cyclophosphamide for children and adolescents with hematologic malignancies an aieop gitmo retrospective multicenter study

Post-transplant high-dose cyclophosphamide (PTCy) is a novel approach to prevent graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and rejection in patients given haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Thirty-three patients with high-risk hematologic malignancies and lacking a match-related or -unrelated donor were treated with PTCy haploidentical HSCT in 5 Italian AIEOP centers. Nineteen patients had a nonmyeloablative preparative regimen (57%), and 14 patients received a full myeloablative conditioning regimen (43%). No patients received serotherapy; GVHD prophylaxis was based on PTCy (50 mg/kg on days +3 and +4) combined with mycophenolate plus tacrolimus or cyclosporine A. Neutrophil and platelet engraftment was achieved on days +17 (range, 14 to 37) and +27 (range, 16 to 71). One patient had autologous reconstitution for anti-HLA antibodies. Acute GVHD grades II to IV and III to IV and chronic GVHD developed in 22% (95% CI, 11 to 42), 3% (95% CI, 0 to 21), and 4% (95% CI, 0 to 27) of cases, respectively. The 1-year overall survival rate was 72% (95% CI, 56 to 88), progression-free survival rate was 61% (95% CI, 43 to 80), cumulative incidence of relapse was 24% (95% CI, 13 to 44), and transplant-related mortality was 9% (95% CI, 3 to 26). The univariate analysis for risk of relapse incidence showed how 3 significant variables, mother as donor (P = .02), donor gender as female (P = .04), and patient gender as female (P = .02), were significantly associated with a lower risk of relapse. Disease progression was the main cause of death. PTCy is a safe procedure also for children and adolescents who have already received several lines of chemotherapy. Among the different diseases, a trend for better 1-year rates of overall survival was obtained for nonacute leukemia patients