Digital Commons Network^™

Educator Perceptions On Equity And Inclusion In The Classroom, Brittany N. Melfi

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study is to identify solutions that can improve equity and inclusion measures in the educational classroom settings for all school community members. This qualitative research explores educators’ perceptions of solutions and barriers to improving equity and inclusion in education. Currently, there is limited research from this stakeholder perspective. This bottom-up research approach aims to determine the needs of those stakeholders in the immediate environment and what supports they feel are necessary to make immediate and lasting change. The qualitative research study took place in a small Pennsylvania school with an enrollment of 387 students and …

Heterogeneity Of Memory T Cells In Aging, Abhinav Jain, Ines Sturmlechner, Cornelia M Weyand, Jörg J Goronzy

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Immune memory is a requisite and remarkable property of the immune system and is the biological foundation of the success of vaccinations in reducing morbidity from infectious diseases. Some vaccines and infections induce long-lasting protection, but immunity to other vaccines and particularly in older adults rarely persists over long time periods. Failed induction of an immune response and accelerated waning of immune memory both contribute to the immuno-compromised state of the older population. Here we review how T cell memory is influenced by age. T cell memory is maintained by a dynamic population of T cells that are heterogeneous in …

Carbon Capture Storage Implemented On Flexible Power Plants And Their Grid Impacts, Michael Kenneth Misch

Theses and Dissertations

The energy grid is under a constant state of evolution from outside factors such as the rise ofrenewable energy in the form of solar and wind generation as well as competing with the changes in weather patterns from climate change leading to significant storms like the arctic event of 2022. Thermal power plants are greatly impacted by these changes. As a significant contributor of CO2 emissions, thermal power plants play an important role in emerging green technology policies to help the efforts of climate change. There is a significant cost associated with this change, however, as thermal plants are some …

Hepatocellular Carcinoma With Hepatic Vein And Inferior Vena Cava Invasion, Akash Shukla, Abhinav Jain

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) invades intrahepatic vessels causing tumor thrombosis. Infrequently, there is involvement of the hepatic vein (HV) and inferior vena cava (IVC). In this review, we summarize the epidemiology, classification, clinical features, and management of HCC with HV and IVC invasion. While the involvement of HV and IVC usually portends an overall poor survival, selected patients may be candidates for aggressive treatment and thus improving outcomes.

Analysis Of Albedo As A Predictor Of Snow And Glacier Ice Changes Over Time: A Case Study Of The Wind River Range, Wyoming, Nana Yaw Owusu-Amponsah

Theses and Dissertations

Changes that are occurring on glaciers have received immense attention globally as well as in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. Glaciers in the Wind River Range have experienced accelerated thinning which has been mostly attributed to increased local and global temperatures by a number of authors. This research seeks to examine the impacts of albedo on glacier thinning and shrinkage in the Wind River Range since there has been little research done in that regard. The study used the green and the near infrared bands of the 30m resolution Landsat imagery to calculate albedo. Temperature and precipitation data were also …

Perinatal Mental Health For Indigenous Women And Birthing People, Amy Lynn Stiffarm

Theses and Dissertations

Before for the impacts of colonization, Indigenous women and birthing people were deeply cared for by their communities during pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period.There is a serious lack of literature on perinatal mental health (PMH) for Indigenous Peoples in the US. Based on what limited data does exist, high rates of PMH complications are consistently reported for Indigenous birthing people. Exploring the unique circumstances experienced by Indigenous birthing people is crucial to addressing the PMH disparity gap. A concept map illustrating the systematic, community, and individual levels of PMH complications for Indigenous Peoples was used to organize and guide …

Risk Factors Associated With Severe Clostridioides Difficile Infection In Patients With Cancer, Denise Marie A Francisco, Liangliang Zhang, Ying Jiang, Adilene Olvera, Javier Adachi, Eduardo Yepez Guevara, Samuel L Aitken, Kevin W Garey, Christine B Peterson, Kim-Anh Do, Ryan Dillon, Engels N Obi, Robert Jenq, Pablo C Okhuysen

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: Antibiotic use is a risk factor for Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). Few studies have correlated use of prior antibiotic classes with CDI, microbiome composition, and disease severity in patients with cancer. We hypothesized that previous antibiotic exposure and fecal microbiome composition at time of presentation are risk factors for severe CDI in patients with cancer.

METHODS: This non-interventional, prospective, cohort study examined 200 patients with cancer who had their first episode or first recurrence of CDI. C. difficile was identified using nucleic acid amplification testing. Univariate analysis was used to determine significant risk factors for severe CDI. Fecal microbiome …

Preoperative Tractography Algorithm For Safe Resection Of Tumors Located In The Descending Motor Pathways Zone, Edgar G Ordonez-Rubiano, Jason M Johnson, Nadin Abdalá-Vargas, Oscar F Zorro, Jorge H Marin-Munoz, Ricardo Álvarez-Tobián, Valeria Forlizzi, Carlos Castillo Rangel, Sabino Luzzi, Alvaro Campero, Javier G Patiño-Gómez, Matias Baldoncini

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography facilitates maximal safe resection and optimizes planning to avoid injury during subcortical dissection along descending motor pathways (DMPs). We provide an affordable, safe, and timely algorithm for preoperative DTI motor reconstruction for gliomas adjacent to DMPs.

METHODS: Preoperative DTI reconstructions were extracted from a prospectively acquired registry of glioma resections adjacent to DMPs. The surgeries were performed over a 7-year period. Demographic, clinical, and radiographic data were extracted from patients' electronic medical records.

RESULTS: Nineteen patients (12 male) underwent preoperative tractography between January 1, 2013, and May 31, 2020. The average age was 44.5 …

Targeted Exome-Based Predictors Of Patterns Of Progression Of Colorectal Liver Metastasis After Percutaneous Thermal Ablation, Iwan Paolucci, Yuan-Mao Lin, Yoshikuni Kawaguchi, Harufumi Maki, A Kyle Jones, Marco Calandri, Scott Kopetz, Timothy E Newhook, Kristy K Brock, Jean-Nicolas Vauthey, Bruno C Odisio

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Percutaneous thermal ablation is a curative-intent locoregional therapy (LRT) for selected patients with unresectable colorectal liver metastasis (CLM). Several factors have been identified that contribute to local tumour control after ablation. However, factors contributing to disease progression outside the ablation zone after ablation are poorly understood.

METHODS: In this retrospective study, using next-generation sequencing, we identified genetic biomarkers associated with different patterns of progression following thermal ablation of CLM.

RESULTS: A total of 191 ablation naïve patients between January 2011 and March 2020 were included in the analysis, and 101 had genomic profiling available. Alterations in the TGFβ pathway …

Clinical, Dosimetric, And Reporting Considerations For Y-90 Glass Microspheres In Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Updated 2022 Recommendations From An International Multidisciplinary Working Group, Riad Salem, Siddharth A Padia, Marnix Lam, Carlo Chiesa, Paul Haste, Bruno Sangro, Beau Toskich, Kirk Fowers, Joseph M Herman, S Cheenu Kappadath, Thomas Leung, Daniel Y Sze, Edward Kim, Etienne Garin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: In light of recently published clinical reports and trials, the TheraSphere Global Dosimetry Steering Committee (DSC) reconvened to review new data and to update previously published clinical and dosimetric recommendations for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

METHODS: The TheraSphere Global DSC is comprised of health care providers across multiple disciplines involved in the treatment of HCC with yttrium-90 (Y-90) glass microsphere-based transarterial radioembolization (TARE). Literature published between January 2019 and September 2021 was reviewed, discussed, and adjudicated by the Delphi method. Recommendations included in this updated document incorporate both the results of the literature review and the expert …

The Interplay Between Neoantigens And Immune Cells In Sarcomas Treated With Checkpoint Inhibition, Irantzu Anzar, Brandon Malone, Pubudu Samarakoon, Ioannis Vardaxis, Boris Simovski, Hugues Fontenelle, Leonardo A Meza-Zepeda, Richard Stratford, Emily Z Keung, Melissa Burgess, Hussein A Tawbi, Ola Myklebost, Trevor Clancy

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: Sarcomas are comprised of diverse bone and connective tissue tumors with few effective therapeutic options for locally advanced unresectable and/or metastatic disease. Recent advances in immunotherapy, in particular immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI), have shown promising outcomes in several cancer indications. Unfortunately, ICI therapy has provided only modest clinical responses and seems moderately effective in a subset of the diverse subtypes.

METHODS: To explore the immune parameters governing ICI therapy resistance or immune escape, we performed whole exome sequencing (WES) on tumors and their matched normal blood, in addition to RNA-seq from tumors of 31 sarcoma patients treated with pembrolizumab. …

Osteoblast-Specific Overexpression Of Nucleolar Protein No66/Riox1 In Mouse Embryos Leads To Osteoporosis In Adult Mice, Qin Chen, Krishna M Sinha, Benoit De Crombrugghe, Ralf Krahe

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

In previous study, we showed that nucleolar protein 66 (NO66) is a chromatin modifier and negatively regulates Osterix activity as well as mesenchymal progenitor differentiation. Genetic ablation of the NO66 (RIOX1) gene in cells of the Prx1-expressing mesenchymal lineage leads to acceleration of osteochondrogenic differentiation and a larger skeleton in adult mice, whereas mesenchyme-specific overexpression of NO66 inhibits osteochondrogenesis resulting in dwarfism and osteopenia. However, the impact of NO66 overexpression in cells of the osteoblast lineage in vivo remains largely undefined. Here, we generated osteoblast-specific transgenic mice overexpressing a FLAG-tagged NO66 transgene driven by the …

Association Of Hearing Loss And Tinnitus Symptoms With Health-Related Quality Of Life Among Long-Term Oropharyngeal Cancer Survivors, Puja Aggarwal, Marc-Elie Nader, Paul W Gidley, Raj Pratihar, Shirin Jivani, Adam S Garden, Frank E Mott, Ryan P Goepfert, Christopher Wallace Ogboe, Camille Charles, Clifton D Fuller, Stephen Y Lai, G Brandon Gunn, Erich M Sturgis, Ehab Y Hanna, Katherine A Hutcheson, Sanjay Shete

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: This study investigated the association of hearing loss and tinnitus with overall health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among long-term oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) survivors.

METHODS: This study included OPC survivors treated between 2000 and 2013 and surveyed from September 2015 to July 2016. Hearing loss and tinnitus were measured by asking survivors to rate their "difficulty with hearing loss and/or ringing in the ears" from 0 (not present) to 10 (as bad as you can imagine). Hearing loss and tinnitus scores were categorized as follows: 0 for none, 1-4 for mild, and 5-10 for moderate to severe. The primary outcome …

Role Of Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy For Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Current Evidence And Future Challenges, Sophie S Jang, Morgan E Davis, David R Vera, Stephen Y Lai, Theresa W Guo

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) has been used across oncological specialties for prognostication, staging, and identification of occult nodal metastasis. Recent studies demonstrated the potential clinical utility of SLNB in oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (OCSCC). Elective neck dissection is the current standard of care in early management of OCSCC with depth of invasion greater than 2-4 mm; however, majority of patients ultimately do not have nodal disease on final pathology. SLNB is an alternative procedure widely adopted in early cancer management in many oncological subspecialities. Several considerations such as depth of invasion, nodal mapping, histopathology methods, operator variability, postoperative …

Keeping Employees Safe During Health Crises: The Effects Of Media Exposure, Hr Practices, And Age, Shuqi Li, Henry R Young, Majid Ghorbani, Byron Y Lee, Daan Van Knippenberg, Russell E Johnson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Occupational health and safety are critical in promoting the wellness of organizations and employees. The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most life-threatening viruses encountered in recent history, providing a unique opportunity for research to examine factors that drive employee safety behavior. Drawing from terror management theory, we propose and test a moderated mediation model using data collected from employees working during a peak of the pandemic. We identify two sources of influence - one external (i.e., media exposure), and one internal (i.e., HR practices) to the organization - that shape employees' mortality salience and safety behaviors. We find that …

Super-Resolution And Segmentation Deep Learning For Breast Cancer Histopathology Image Analysis, Aniwat Juhong, Bo Li, Cheng-You Yao, Chia-Wei Yang, Dalen W Agnew, Yu Leo Lei, Xuefei Huang, Wibool Piyawattanametha, Zhen Qiu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Traditionally, a high-performance microscope with a large numerical aperture is required to acquire high-resolution images. However, the images' size is typically tremendous. Therefore, they are not conveniently managed and transferred across a computer network or stored in a limited computer storage system. As a result, image compression is commonly used to reduce image size resulting in poor image resolution. Here, we demonstrate custom convolution neural networks (CNNs) for both super-resolution image enhancement from low-resolution images and characterization of both cells and nuclei from hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained breast cancer histopathological images by using a combination of generator and discriminator …

Predictive Modeling Using Shape Statistics For Interpretable And Robust Quality Assurance Of Automated Contours In Radiation Treatment Planning, Zachary T Wooten, Cenji Yu, Laurence E Court, Christine B Peterson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Deep learning methods for image segmentation and contouring are gaining prominence as an automated approach for delineating anatomical structures in medical images during radiation treatment planning. These contours are used to guide radiotherapy treatment planning, so it is important that contouring errors are flagged before they are used for planning. This creates a need for effective quality assurance methods to enable the clinical use of automated contours in radiotherapy. We propose a novel method for contour quality assurance that requires only shape features, making it independent of the platform used to obtain the images. Our method uses a random forest …

Grid Cells, Border Cells, And Discrete Complex Analysis, Yuri Dabaghian

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

We propose a mechanism enabling the appearance of border cells-neurons firing at the boundaries of the navigated enclosures. The approach is based on the recent discovery of discrete complex analysis on a triangular lattice, which allows constructing discrete epitomes of complex-analytic functions and making use of their inherent ability to attain maximal values at the boundaries of generic lattice domains. As it turns out, certain elements of the discrete-complex framework readily appear in the oscillatory models of grid cells. We demonstrate that these models can extend further, producing cells that increase their activity toward the frontiers of the navigated environments. …

Associative Learning Contributes To The Persistence Of Fatigue-Like Behavior In Male Mice In A Model Of Cancer Survivorship, Elisabeth G Vichaya, Josephine K Darpolor, Phillip S Gross, Jessica M Molkentine, Daniel W Vermeer, Paola D Vermeer, John H Lee, Cullen M Taniguchi, Robert Dantzer

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Persistent fatigue is a debilitating side effect that impacts a significant proportion of cancer survivors for which there is not yet an FDA-approved treatment. While certainly a multi-factorial problem, persistent fatigue could be due, in part, to associations learned during treatment. Therefore, we sought to investigate the role of associative learning in the persistence of fatigue using a preclinical model of cancer survivorship. For this purpose, we used a murine model of human papilloma virus-related head and neck cancer paired with a curative regimen of cisplatin-based chemoradiation in male C57BL/6J mice. Fatigue-like behavior was assessed by measuring variations in voluntary …

Chronic Restraint Stress Impairs Voluntary Wheel Running But Has No Effect On Food-Motivated Behavior In Mice, Kiersten Scott, Thien Trong Phan, Nabila Boukelmoune, Cobi J Heijnen, Robert Dantzer

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Chronic restraint stress is known to cause significant alterations of mitochondrial biology. However, its effects on effort-based behavior and the sensitivity of these effects to treatments that restore mitochondrial function have not been assessed. Based on the hypothesis that the behavioral consequences of this stressor should be more severe for an energy demanding activity than for an energy procuring activity, we compared the effects of chronic restraint stress on the performance of male mice trained to use a running wheel or to nose poke for a food reward in an operant conditioning cage. In accordance with our hypothesis, we observed …

Pediatric Diarrhea Patients Living In Urban Areas Have A Higher Incidence Of Clostridioides Difficile Infection, Ayodele T Adesoji, Osaro Mgbere, Charles Darkoh

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a major cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and an unappreciated contributor to child mortality in low- and middle-income countries where the diagnosis may be difficult. There is little information about the prevalence of CDI among infants, children, and adolescents in Africa. Using a cross-sectional design, seventy-six samples were collected from pediatric patients presenting with diarrhea, including infants (≤ 2 years old), children (2-12 years), and adolescents (13 ≤17 years) from three hospitals between January and December 2019. Demographic data, medical history, and prior antibiotic use were recorded. Toxigenic culture and PCR were used to detect and …

Population-Based Assessment Of The Burden Of Covid-19 Infection In African Countries: A First-Year Report Card And Public Health Implications, Osaro Mgbere, Ogbonna Collins Nwabuko, Olajumoke A Olateju, Omolola E Adepoju, Winston Liaw, Charles Darkoh, Ekere James Essien

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic constitutes a global health threat and poses a major burden on the African continent. We assessed the real-world burden of COVID-19 infection in African Union (AU) member states to determine the distributional patterns of epidemiological measures during the first 1 year of the pandemic.

METHODS: This retrospective cross-sectional study utilized COVID-19 data from publicly available data repositories of the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention and

RESULTS: A total of 3.21 million cases were reported during the 1-year period, with 2.6 million recoveries, 536,784 cases remaining active, and 77,486 deaths. Most countries (49.1%,

CONCLUSION: Understanding …

Small Molecule Inhibitor Of Tau Self-Association In A Mouse Model Of Tauopathy: A Preventive Study In P301l Tau Jnpl3 Mice, Eliot J Davidowitz, Patricia Lopez, Heidy Jimenez, Leslie Adrien, Peter Davies, James G Moe

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Advances in tau biology and the difficulties of amyloid-directed immunotherapeutics have heightened interest in tau as a target for small molecule drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we evaluated OLX-07010, a small molecule inhibitor of tau self-association, for the prevention of tau aggregation. The primary endpoint of the study was statistically significant reduction of insoluble tau aggregates in treated JNPL3 mice compared with Vehicle-control mice. Secondary endpoints were dose-dependent reduction of insoluble tau aggregates, reduction of phosphorylated tau, and reduction of soluble tau. This study was performed in JNPL3 mice, which are representative of inherited forms of 4-repeat tauopathies with …

Targeting T Cell Checkpoints 41bb And Lag3 And Myeloid Cell Cxcr1/Cxcr2 Results In Antitumor Immunity And Durable Response In Pancreatic Cancer, Pat Gulhati, Aislyn Schalck, Shan Jiang, Xiaoying Shang, Chang-Jiun Wu, Pingping Hou, Sharia Hernandez Ruiz, Luisa Solis Soto, Edwin Parra, Haoqiang Ying, Jincheng Han, Prasenjit Dey, Jun Li, Pingna Deng, Emi Sei, Dean Y Maeda, John A Zebala, Denise J Spring, Michael Kim, Huamin Wang, Anirban Maitra, Dirk Moore, Karen Clise-Dwyer, Y Alan Wang, Nicholas E Navin, Ronald A Depinho

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is considered non-immunogenic, with trials showing its recalcitrance to PD1 and CTLA4 immune checkpoint therapies (ICTs). Here, we sought to systematically characterize the mechanisms underlying de novo ICT resistance and to identify effective therapeutic options for PDAC. We report that agonist 41BB and antagonist LAG3 ICT alone and in combination, increased survival and antitumor immunity, characterized by modulating T cell subsets with antitumor activity, increased T cell clonality and diversification, decreased immunosuppressive myeloid cells and increased antigen presentation/decreased immunosuppressive capability of myeloid cells. Translational analyses confirmed the expression of 41BB and LAG3 in human PDAC. Since …

A Unified Mediation Analysis Framework For Integrative Cancer Proteogenomics With Clinical Outcomes, Licai Huang, James P Long, Ehsan Irajizad, James D Doecke, Kim-Anh Do, Min Jin Ha

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

MOTIVATION: Multilevel molecular profiling of tumors and the integrative analysis with clinical outcomes have enabled a deeper characterization of cancer treatment. Mediation analysis has emerged as a promising statistical tool to identify and quantify the intermediate mechanisms by which a gene affects an outcome. However, existing methods lack a unified approach to handle various types of outcome variables, making them unsuitable for high-throughput molecular profiling data with highly interconnected variables.

RESULTS: We develop a general mediation analysis framework for proteogenomic data that include multiple exposures, multivariate mediators on various scales of effects as appropriate for continuous, binary and survival outcomes. …

Sparse Tree-Based Clustering Of Microbiome Data To Characterize Microbiome Heterogeneity In Pancreatic Cancer, Yushu Shi, Liangliang Zhang, Kim-Anh Do, Robert Jenq, Christine B Peterson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

There is a keen interest in characterizing variation in the microbiome across cancer patients, given increasing evidence of its important role in determining treatment outcomes. Here our goal is to discover subgroups of patients with similar microbiome profiles. We propose a novel unsupervised clustering approach in the Bayesian framework that innovates over existing model-based clustering approaches, such as the Dirichlet multinomial mixture model, in three key respects: we incorporate feature selection, learn the appropriate number of clusters from the data, and integrate information on the tree structure relating the observed features. We compare the performance of our proposed method to …

Frontostriatal And Limbic Contributions To Cognitive Decline In Parkinson’S Disease, Gregory Brown, Jonathan Hakun, Mechelle M Lewis, Sol De Jesus, Guangwei Du, Paul J Eslinger, Lan Kong, Xuemei Huang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The circuitry underlying heterogenous cognitive profiles in Parkinson's disease (PD) remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether structural changes in frontostriatal and limbic pathways contribute to different cognitive trajectories in PD.

METHODS: We obtained clinical and multimodal MRI data from 120 control and 122 PD subjects without dementia or severe motor disability. T1/T2-weighted images estimated volume, and diffusion imaging evaluated fractional anisotropy (FA) of frontostriatal (striatum and frontostriatal white matter [FSWM]) and limbic (hippocampus and fornix) structures. Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) gauged total and domain-specific (attention/executive and memory) cognitive function. Linear mixed-effects models …

Molecular Predictors Of Immunophenotypic Measurable Residual Disease Clearance In Acute Myeloid Leukemia, Maximilian Stahl, Andriy Derkach, Noushin Farnoud, Jan Philipp Bewersdorf, Troy Robinson, Christopher Famulare, Christina Cho, Sean Devlin, Kamal Menghrajani, Minal A Patel, Sheng F Cai, Linde A Miles, Robert L Bowman, Mark B Geyer, Andrew Dunbar, Zachary D Epstein-Peterson, Erin Mcgovern, Jessica Schulman, Jacob L Glass, Justin Taylor, Aaron D Viny, Eytan M Stein, Bartlomiej Getta, Maria E Arcila, Qi Gao, Juliet Barker, Brian C Shaffer, Esperanza B Papadopoulos, Boglarka Gyurkocza, Miguel-Angel Perales, Omar Abdel-Wahab, Ross L Levine, Sergio A Giralt, Yanming Zhang, Wenbin Xiao, Nidhi Pai, Elli Papaemmanuil, Martin S Tallman, Mikhail Roshal, Aaron D Goldberg

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Measurable residual disease (MRD) is a powerful prognostic factor in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, pre-treatment molecular predictors of immunophenotypic MRD clearance remain unclear. We analyzed a dataset of 211 patients with pre-treatment next-generation sequencing who received induction chemotherapy and had MRD assessed by serial immunophenotypic monitoring after induction, subsequent therapy, and allogeneic stem cell transplant (allo-SCT). Induction chemotherapy led to MRD- remission, MRD+ remission, and persistent disease in 35%, 27%, and 38% of patients, respectively. With subsequent therapy, 34% of patients with MRD+ and 26% of patients with persistent disease converted to MRD-. Mutations in CEBPA, NRAS, KRAS, and …

Safety Of Concurrent Radiation Therapy With Brentuximab Vedotin In The Treatment Of Lymphoma, Susan Y Wu, Penny Q Fang, Ethan B Wang, Sairah Ahmed, Madeleine Duvic, Preetesh Jain, Luis E Malpica Castillo, Ranjit Nair, Raphael E Steiner, Paolo Strati, Auris O Huen, Swaminathan P Iyer, Chelsea C Pinnix, Bouthaina S Dabaja, Jillian R Gunther

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: Purpose: Radiation therapy (RT) and the antibody-drug conjugate brentuximab vedotin (BV) are standard-of-care treatment options for patients with certain B and T-cell lymphomas; however, there are limited data exploring the safety of concurrent BV and RT (BVRT).

METHODS AND MATERIALS: We performed a single institutional retrospective review of 44 patients who received BVRT.

RESULTS: Twenty percent of patients (9/44) developed new grade 2 or higher (G2+) hematologic toxicity (HT) after BVRT, which was associated with radiation dose (median dose of 35 Gy in those with new G2+ HT compared with 15 Gy in those without;

CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis demonstrates …

Development And Validation Of Early Death Risk Score Model For Emergency Status Prediction In Very Severe Aplastic Anemia, Xu Liu, Wenrui Yang, Li Zhang, Liping Jing, Lei Ye, Kang Zhou, Yuan Li, Jianping Li, Huihui Fan, Yang Yang, Youzhen Xiong, Xin Zhao, Fengkui Zhang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

This study developed and validated the Early Death Risk Score Model for early identification of emergency patients with very severe aplastic anemia (VSAA). All 377 patients with VSAA receiving first-line immunosuppressive therapy (IST) were categorized into training (n=252) and validation (n=125) cohorts. In the training cohort, age >24 years, absolute neutrophil count ≤0.015×109/L, serum ferritin >900ng/mL and times of fever before IST >1 time were significantly associated with early death. Covariates were assigned scores and categorized as: low (score 0-4), medium (score 5-7) and high (score ≥8) risk. Early death rate was significantly different between risk groups and the validation …