Diagnosis and severity criteria for sinusoidal obstruction syndrome/veno-occlusive disease in pediatric patients : a new classification from the European society for blood and marrow transplantation

The advances in hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) over the last decade have led to a transplant-related mortality below 15%. Hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome/veno-occlusive disease (SOS/VOD) is a life-threatening complication of HCT that belongs to a group of diseases increasingly identified as transplant-related, systemic endothelial diseases. In most cases, SOS/VOD resolves within weeks; however, severe SOS/VOD results in multi-organ dysfunction/failure with a mortality rate > 80%. A timely diagnosis of SOS/VOD is of critical importance, given the availability of therapeutic options with favorable tolerability. Current diagnostic criteria are used for adults and children. However, over the last decade it has become clear that SOS/VOD is significantly different between the age groups in terms of incidence, genetic predisposition, clinical presentation, prevention, treatment and outcome. Improved understanding of SOS/VOD and the availability of effective treatment questions the use of the Baltimore and Seattle criteria for diagnosing SOS/VOD in children. The aim of this position paper is to propose new diagnostic and severity criteria for SOS/VOD in children on behalf of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation.Peer reviewe

Linear and thermo-optically generated nonlinear optical response of bovine serum albumin and its constituent amino acids in continuous wave z-scan

Proteins are large biomolecules in the form of polypeptide chains consisting of amino acid (AA) residues. Ultraviolet–visible absorption spectroscopy and continuous wave (CW) z-scan of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and some of its constituent AAs were examined to deduce the relationship between the optical properties of this protein molecule and its constituents. From the analysis of their optical spectra, the absorption at 278 nm by BSA is found to be the outcome of the cumulative effects of the absorptions by constituent aromatic AA residues, cysteine disulfide bonds, and methionine. Similarly, the closed aperture CW z-scan of BSA and those of the constituent AAs at 74–106 mW incident optical power at 655 nm indicate that thermally generated third-order optical effects arise in BSA and its aromatic AA residues due to multiphoton absorptions. The nonlinear optical (NLO) responses of BSA and those of the AA residues are compared in terms of their molar phase shift per unit power, which indicate a possible relationship between the NLO property of BSA and its AA residues