“魔法”血液检验可能让血癌骨髓移植更安全

    根据一项新的美国研究，血液检验可能帮助一些血癌患者在骨髓移植手术后预测并发症的风险。

这个测试可能帮助识别哪些患者进行移植有可能发生潜在的致命并发症，研究人员在《临床调查杂志》上报到。

这样做可能“允许早期的干预和潜在的挽救很多人的生命”来自西奈山医学院的首席研究员James Ferrara教授说。

    骨髓移植是患者的造血干细胞被来自供体的代替，一些血癌患者用来治愈他们的疾病。但是大约一半接受了这个过程的患者发展成一系列和常常致命的称为移植物抗宿主病（GVHD）的并发症。

这种情况发生在当供体的免疫细胞认为患者的身体是一种威胁并对其开始发起反击，引起有时对治疗无反应的炎症。

对于这项新研究，来自美国和欧洲11个癌症研究中心的研究人员调查了大约1300个骨髓移植患者的血液样本来观察他们是否能预测患者发展为移植物抗宿主病，以及他们的前景。

他们发展了一种称为西奈山急性移植物抗宿主病国际联盟的测试，调查血液中四种不同的分子。研究人员发现，在移植过程一周后测量他们当中两种称为ST2 和REG3a分子的水平可能帮助辨别处于并发症和死亡高风险的患者。

西奈山的研究人员正在用这些结果来设计临床试验，在测试之后辨别有高风险的，调查某些免疫药物（一般是在移植物抗宿主病发生时）如果早点服用是否能够改善一些患者的前景。

英国癌症研究中心的干细胞移植专家Ronjon Chakraverty教授说：“这个研究揭示了在骨髓移植仅一周之后进行血液检验能准确的辨别哪些患者正处于生命受到威胁的大风险情况。”

   “重要的是，这个测试在美国和欧洲不同的医院和不同类型的病人中进行，说明他可能应用很广泛。像这样的测试重点针对高风险的患者，同时确保他们在移植物抗宿主病发展前得到专门的靶向治疗。”

‘Magic’ blood test could make bone marrow transplants for blood cancer safer

    A blood test could help predict the risk of complication following a bone marrow transplant in some blood cancer patients, according to a new US study.

The test could help identify which patients given a transplant are likely to develop a potentially fatal complication, the researchers report in The Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight .

In doing so, the test could “allow early intervention and potentially save many lives”, said lead researcher Professor James Ferrara from Mount Sinai School of Medicine .

    Bone marrow transplants, in which a patient’s blood stem cells are replaced with those from a donor, are given to some patients with blood cancer to cure their disease. But around half of patients who receive the procedure develop a serious and often fatal complication called graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).

    This happens when the donated immune cells recognise the patient’s body as a threat and launch an attack against it, causing inflammation that sometimes doesn’t respond to treatment.

For this latest study, researchers from 11 cancer centres in the US and Europe looked at blood samples from almost 1,300 bone marrow transplant patients to see if they could predict whether a patient will develop GVHD, and also their outlook.

     They developed a test, called ‘MAGIC’ (Mount Sinai Acute GVHD International Consortium), looked at four different molecules in the blood. The researchers found that measuring the levels of two of these molecules – ST2 and REG3a – just one week after the transplant procedure, could help identify those at high risk of developing the complication and dying.

     Researchers at Mount Sinai are now using these results to design clinical trials looking into whether certain immunotherapy drugs, normally given at the onset of GVHD, could improve the outlook for some patients if given earlier on, after the test identifies them as high risk.

    Professor Ronjon Chakraverty (link is external), a Cancer Research UK expert on stem cell transplants, said: “This study reveals that a blood test performed just one week following a bone marrow transplant accurately identifies which patients are at the greatest risk of this life-threatening condition. ”

   “Importantly, the test worked in different hospitals and in different groups of patients in the US and Europe, suggesting that it could be used widely. Tests such as this could spot patients who are most at risk, and make sure they get special targeted treatment before GVHD develops.”

媒体链接：“魔法”血液检验可能让血癌骨髓移植更安全