Assesment of patient's perspective on treatment free remission in CML: A Turkish multicenter cohort

Treatment free remission (TFR) is one of the main goals of therapy in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML). Patient perspective and expectations have an indicative effect on discontinuation decisions. We analyzed 116 CML patients' perspective on TFR and factors that associated with willingness for tyrosine kinaz inhibitor (TKI) discontinuation from four different center in Turkey based on a national survey. Patients in our cohort had 7.8% awareness of TFR and after brief information willingness to attempt TFR has been reached to 58.9% in all population. Shorter disease duration was associated with enhanced willingness to attempt discontinuation in multivariate analyses (p=0.031). Most common patient related limitation for TKI discontinuation decision was anxiety about disease relaps and TKI resistance. Even disease relaps in TFR means molecular and detectable with close monitoring, patients still had considerable concerns about TKI discontinuation

Tactical crew planning in railways

Tactical crew capacity planning problem in railways involves finding the minimum number of crews in a region required to operate a predetermined set of train duties satisfying the strict day-off requirement for crew. For the single-region problem, we develop two solution approaches based on a space-time network representation: the sequential approach and the integrated approach. We also study the multi-regional capacity planning problem where we minimize total system-wide capacity by simultaneously considering multiple regions within a neighborhood search algorithm based on our solution methods for the single-region problem. We present the computational study on problem instances from Turkish State Railways

A branch-and-price algorithm for the rainbow cycle cover problems

A rainbow cycle in an undirected edge-colored graph is a cycle in which all edges have different colors. A rainbow cycle cover of a graph is a set of disjoint rainbow cycles, where each vertex belongs to exactly one cycle. The objective of the rainbow cycle cover problem is to minimize the number of rainbow cycles used to cover the vertices of the graph while the trivial cycle version also keeps the number of isolated vertices (called trivial rainbow cycles) at minimum. We present a branch-and-price procedure with column generation to solve both versions of the rainbow cycle cover problem. We compare our results with the literature in terms of computational performance. We also discuss two approaches to possibly improve the performance of the branch-and-price procedure

Efficacy of Bendamustine, Pomalidomide, and Dexamethasone (BPD) Regimen in Relapsed/Refractory Extramedullary Myeloma: A Retrospective Single-Centre Study, Real-Life Experience

Background and Objectives: Relapsed/refractory extramedullary myeloma (RREMM) is an uncommon and aggressive subtype of multiple myeloma defined by plasma cell proliferation outside the bone marrow. Therapeutic options for RREMM are limited, and the prognosis is generally unfavorable. This research aimed to assess the effectiveness of the bendamustine, pomalidomide, and dexamethasone (BPD) regimen in patients with RREMM. Material and Methods: We carried out a retrospective investigation of 11 RREMM patients who underwent BPD treatment. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival. The secondary endpoints of the study were two-year survival and overall response rate (ORR). We analyzed the sociodemographic and clinical features of the patients. Results: The average age of the patients was 62 years. They had a median of four prior treatment lines, and eight patients had previously received autologous stem-cell transplantation. After eight BPD treatment cycles, the ORR stood at 54%, with one very good partial response (VGPR), five partial responses (PR), three progressive diseases (PD), and two stable diseases (SD). The median follow-up was 15 months, with a two-year PFS rate of 71.3% and a two-year survival rate of 81.8%. Conclusions: The BPD regimen demonstrated promising effectiveness in RREMM patients, yielding favorable ORR and survival rates. To corroborate these findings and explore additional treatment alternatives for this patient group, larger prospective studies are required

Orak hücreli anemi hastalarında ozmolarite, asidite ve volüm değişikliklerinin eritrositlerdeki potasyum-klorür sistemi üzerindeki etkileri

AMAÇ: Bu çalışmanın amacı Orak Hücreli Anemi’de ozmolarite ve asidite değişikliklerinin eritrositlerdeki potasyum-klor kotranport sistemine olan etkilerini araştırmaktır. YÖNTEM: Normal ve oraklaşmış eritrositlerde değişik pH ve ozmolarite değerlerinde KCC sistemi aktivitesini inceledik. BULGULAR: Oraklaşmış eritrositlerde KCC aktivitesinin normal eritrositlere göre artmış bulunmuştur. Ayrıca, bu aktivite osmolarite ve asiditeye bağlı olarak değişiklikler göstermiştir. TARTIŞMA: OHA tedavisinde polimerizasyon ve oraklaşmanın engellenmesi önemlidir. KCC aktivitesindeki veya eritrositlerdeki Gardos kanal aktivitesindeki artış dehidratasyona neden olur. Bu çalışmada KCC aktivitesi literatürle uyumlu olarak oraklaşmış eritrositlerde normallere göre daha yüksek bulunmuştur. Ayrıca normal ve oraklaşmış eritrositlerde KCC aktivitesinin pH 6’da ve 8’de inhibe olduğu,pH 6,5-7,5’da aktive olduğu görülmüştür. SONUÇ: OHA’de; osmolarite ve asiditeyi etkileyebilecek yaklaşımlar geliştirilerek, KCC aktivitesini azaltan ve dehidratasyonu engelleyen yeni tedavi modaliteleri oluşturabilir.PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of changes in osmolarity and acidity on potassium-chlorur cotransport system (KCC) of erythrocytes in Sickle Cell Anemia (SCA). METHODS: We studied KCC activity at different pH and osmolarity values in both normal and sickled erythrocytes. RESULTS: KCC activity was found to be increased in sickled erythrocytes when compared to normal. This activity was also effected by osmolarity and acidity. CONCLUSION: Dicouraging polymerysation and sickling is important in the treatment of SCA. Any increment in the activity of KCC system or Gardos channel activity which lies in the erythrocytes triggers the dehydratation. In this study KCC activity is found higher in sickled erythrocytes than normal that is consistent with the literature. KCC activity is also observed to be inhibited in pH 6 and 8 where as activated pH 6,5-7,5 in both normal and sickled erythrocytes