Complications and outcome of cats with congenital extrahepatic portosystemic shunts treated with thin film: Thirty-four cases (2008-2017)

Background: Congenital extrahepatic portosystemic shunts (CEHPSS) are rare in cats. Outcome after attenuation of CEHPSS with thin film has been described in a small number of cases. Objectives: To describe the clinical presentation, postoperative complications, and outcome of cats treated with thin film to attenuate CEHPSS. Animals: Thirty‐four cats with CEHPSS were identified from the database of 3 institutions over 9 years. Methods: Retrospective study. Medical records were reviewed to identify cats with a diagnosis of a CEHPSS that underwent surgical attenuation. Congenital extrahepatic portosystemic shunts were suspected from clinical signs, clinicopathologic findings, and diagnostic imaging, and confirmed at exploratory laparotomy. Cats treated with thin film band attenuation were included. Postoperative complications and follow‐up were recorded. Results: Complications were recorded in 11 of 34 cats. Deaths related to CEHPSS occurred in 6 of 34; 4 cats did not survive to discharge. Persistent seizures were the cause of death in 4 cats. Seizures were recorded in 8 of 34 cats after surgery; all these cats received preoperative antiepileptic drugs. Serum bile acid concentrations normalized in 25 of 28 of the cats for which data was available. Three cats had persistently increased serum bile acid concentrations and underwent a second exploratory laparotomy. One had a patent shunt, the other 2 had multiple acquired portosystemic shunts. Median follow‐up was 8 months (0.5‐84 months). Conclusions and Clinical Importance: Congenital extrahepatic portosystemic shunts attenuation using thin film in cats carries a good short‐ and mid‐term prognosis if they survive the postoperative period. Seizures were the most common cause of death

Performance of Glass Resistive Plate Chambers for a high granularity semi-digital calorimeter

A new design of highly granular hadronic calorimeter using Glass Resistive Plate Chambers (GRPCs) with embedded electronics has been proposed for the future International Linear Collider (ILC) experiments. It features a 2-bit threshold semi-digital read-out. Several GRPC prototypes with their electronics have been successfully built and tested in pion beams. The design of these detectors is presented along with the test results on efficiency, pad multiplicity, stability and reproducibility.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figure

Construction and commissioning of a technological prototype of a high-granularity semi-digital hadronic calorimeter

A large prototype of 1.3m3 was designed and built as a demonstrator of the semi-digital hadronic calorimeter (SDHCAL) concept proposed for the future ILC experiments. The prototype is a sampling hadronic calorimeter of 48 units. Each unit is built of an active layer made of 1m2 Glass Resistive Plate Chamber(GRPC) detector placed inside a cassette whose walls are made of stainless steel. The cassette contains also the electronics used to read out the GRPC detector. The lateral granularity of the active layer is provided by the electronics pick-up pads of 1cm2 each. The cassettes are inserted into a self-supporting mechanical structure built also of stainless steel plates which, with the cassettes walls, play the role of the absorber. The prototype was designed to be very compact and important efforts were made to minimize the number of services cables to optimize the efficiency of the Particle Flow Algorithm techniques to be used in the future ILC experiments. The different components of the SDHCAL prototype were studied individually and strict criteria were applied for the final selection of these components. Basic calibration procedures were performed after the prototype assembling. The prototype is the first of a series of new-generation detectors equipped with a power-pulsing mode intended to reduce the power consumption of this highly granular detector. A dedicated acquisition system was developed to deal with the output of more than 440000 electronics channels in both trigger and triggerless modes. After its completion in 2011, the prototype was commissioned using cosmic rays and particles beams at CERN.Comment: 49 pages, 41 figure

The synovial and blood monocyte DNA methylomes mirror prognosis, evolution and treatment in early arthritis

Identifying predictive biomarkers at early stages of early inflammatory arthritis is crucial for starting appropriate therapies to avoid poor outcomes. Monocytes and macrophages, largely associated with arthritis, are contributors and sensors of inflammation through epigenetic modifications. In this study, we investigated associations between clinical features and DNA methylation in blood and synovial fluid (SF) monocytes in a prospective cohort of early inflammatory arthritis patients. Undifferentiated arthritis (UA) blood monocyte DNA methylation profiles exhibited significant alterations in comparison with those from healthy donors. We identified additional differences both in blood and SF monocytes after comparing UA patients grouped by their future outcomes, good versus poor. Patient profiles in subsequent visits revealed a reversion towards a healthy level in both groups, those requiring disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and those that remitted spontaneously. Changes in disease activity between visits also impacted DNA methylation, partially concomitant in the SF of UA and in blood monocytes of rheumatoid arthritis patients. Epigenetic similarities between arthritis types allow a common prediction of disease activity. Our results constitute a resource of DNA methylation-based biomarkers of poor prognosis, disease activity and treatment efficacy in early untreated UA patients for the personalized clinical management of early inflammatory arthritis patients

Estudio del perfil genético en pacientes con Amiloidosis de cadenas ligeras

Oral Presentation [CO-130] Introducción: Los estudios de secuenciación masiva (NGS) han permitido profundizar en el conocimiento de las gammapatías monoclonales tales como el mieloma múltiple (MM) y la macroglobulinemia de Waldesntröm’s (WM). Desafortunadamente, la baja incidencia de la amiloidosis de cadenas ligeras (AL) y la baja carga tumoral que presenta, a menudo enmascarada por un fondo policlonal de células plasmáticas (PC), explica la poca información que hay sobre la biología de la célula tumoral. Por ello, se desconoce si la AL presenta alguna mutación común como ocurre en la WM, si existen mutaciones recurrentes, y si estas podrían coincidir con las observadas en MM. Por lo tanto, el objetivo de este trabajo es realizar una secuenciación de exoma (WES) en una serie de pacientes con AL y comparar su perfil mutacional con el de MM. Métodos: En este estudio se incluyeron 28 pacientes con AL. Se realizó un WES, incluyendo las regiones reguladoras UTR (SureSelect Human All Exon V6 + UTRs (Agilent)) en 56 muestras pareadas sorteadas de células plasmáticas patológicas y sangre periférica como muestra control. Cada muestra tumoral fue capturada por triplicado y secuenciada en la plataforma NextSeq 500 (Illumina). Para el análisis de variantes somáticas se utilizaron los programas Strelka y ANNOVAR. . Las firmas mutacionales se analizaron con el software DeconstructSigs. Para comparar el perfil mutacional de AL con MM se utilizó la base de datos MMRF CoMMpass con 895 pacientes. Además, se han determinado los reordenamientos de los genes de las inmunoglobulinas (Igs) mediante NGS. Resultados: La cobertura media de secuenciación para las muestras de control y tumor fue de 64x y 186x, respectivamente. Se detectaron un total de 1983 SNV y 133 INDEL con una media de 71 (20-281) SNV y 5 (0-25) INDEL por paciente. Al comparar con MM (media 66 SNV y 2.5 INDEL) se observó una carga mutacional similar. Los únicos genes mutados tanto en AL como en MM fueron MUC16 (recurrencia 17% y 8%, respectivamente) e IGLL5 (recurrencia 17%, en ambas), siendo además los genes más frecuentemente mutados en AL Las firmas mutacionales más frecuentes que se identificaron fueron la 1 (desaminación espontánea de citosinas metiladas en sitios CpG), la 3 (fallo en la reparación de la ruptura de la doble cadena de ADN mediante recombinación homóloga), y la 9 (transveriones T> G en trinucleótidos ApTpN y TpTpN), identificadas en el 96%, 54% y 46% de los pacientes, respectivamente. Respecto al repertorio de los genes de las Igs, se observó que el 26% de los pacientes con AL presentan más de un clon, siendo esta heterogeneidad clonal similar a la encontrada en MM (23%). El gen IGHV3-30 fue identificado con mayor frecuencia tanto en AL como en MM, 10% y 12% de recurrencia, respectivamente. Conclusiones: Este es el primer estudio de WES en una serie de pacientes con AL. Los resultados muestran que no hay una mutación común driver en esta enfermedad, que podrían estar implicados múltiples procesos mutacionales, y que los genes descritos más frecuentemente mutados en AL y MM no coinciden. En conjunto, estos resultados suponen un avance en el entendimiento de la patogénesis de la AL

Prognostic utility of serum free light chain ratios and heavy-light chain ratios in multiple myeloma in three PETHEMA/GEM phase III clinical trials

We investigated the prognostic impact and clinical utility of serum free light chains (sFLC) and serum heavy-light chains (sHLC) in patients with multiple myeloma treated according to the GEM2005MENOS65, GEM2005MAS65, and GEM2010MAS65 PETHEMA/GEM phase III clinical trials. Serum samples collected at diagnosis were retrospectively analyzed for sFLC (n = 623) and sHLC (n = 183). After induction or autologous transplantation, 309 and 89 samples respectively were available for sFLC and sHLC assays. At diagnosis, a highly abnormal (HA) sFLC ratio (sFLCr) (32) was not associated with higher risk of progression. After therapy, persistence of involved-sFLC levels >100 mg/L implied worse survival (overall survival [OS], P = 0.03; progression-free survival [PFS], P = 0.007). Among patients that achieved a complete response, sFLCr normalization did not necessarily indicate a higher quality response. We conducted sHLC investigations for IgG and IgA MM. Absolute sHLC values were correlated with monoclonal protein levels measured with serum protein electrophoresis. At diagnosis, HA-sHLCrs (73) showed a higher risk of progression (P = 0.006). Additionally, involved-sHLC levels >5 g/L after treatment were associated with shorter survival (OS, P = 0.001; PFS, P = 0.018). The HA-sHLCr could have prognostic value at diagnosis; absolute values of involved-sFLC >100 mg/L and involved-sHLC >5 g/L could have prognostic value after treatment

Flow cytometry for fast screening and automated risk assessment in systemic light-chain amyloidosis

Early diagnosis and risk stratification are key to improve outcomes in light-chain (AL) amyloidosis. Here we used multidimensional-flow-cytometry (MFC) to characterize bone marrow (BM) plasma cells (PCs) from a series of 166 patients including newly-diagnosed AL amyloidosis (N = 94), MGUS (N = 20) and multiple myeloma (MM, N = 52) vs. healthy adults (N = 30). MFC detected clonality in virtually all AL amyloidosis (99%) patients. Furthermore, we developed an automated risk-stratification system based on BMPCs features, with independent prognostic impact on progression-free and overall survival of AL amyloidosis patients (hazard ratio: ≥ 2.9;P ≤ .03). Simultaneous assessment of the clonal PCs immunophenotypic protein expression profile and the BM cellular composition, mapped AL amyloidosis in the crossroad between MGUS and MM; however, lack of homogenously-positive CD56 expression, reduction of B-cell precursors and a predominantly-clonal PC compartment in the absence of an MM-like tumor PC expansion, emerged as hallmarks of AL amyloidosis (ROC-AUC = 0.74;P < .001), and might potentially be used as biomarkers for the identification of MGUS and MM patients, who are candidates for monitoring pre-symptomatic organ damage related to AL amyloidosis. Altogether, this study addressed the need for consensus on how to use flow cytometry in AL amyloidosis, and proposes a standardized MFC-based automated risk classification ready for implementation in clinical practice