Diagnosis and Management of Pediatric Leukemia

A special issue of Diagnostics (ISSN 2075-4418). This special issue belongs to the section "Pathology and Molecular Diagnostics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 4043

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Federal State Budgetary Institution “Scientific Centre for Expert Evaluation of Medicinal Products” of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia
Interests: biotechnology; genetics; molecular biology; sequencing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The focus of this Special issue is on the current advances in diagnostics and management of pediatric leukemia, which is the most common cancer in children and teens.

Leukemia is a very heterogeneous disease; the main types of leukemia are divided according to whether the leukemia is acute (fast-growing) or chronic (slow growing), and whether it starts in myeloid or lymphoid progenitor cells. Despite this classification, many narrower forms of the disease are distinguished, which differ significantly in treatment options and clinical outcomes. There are well-known diagnostic markers that are used to stratify patients and select a treatment protocol, but many of the precise molecular mechanisms underlying the different forms of the disease need to be identified. Thus, the search for new diagnostic and prognostic markers using high-throughput genotyping and omics data integration technologies becomes a key direction in developing effective treatments and improving patient management.

In addition, hereditary predisposition to leukemia is of special importance. A better understanding of leukemogenesis and recognition of germline genetic changes could provide new tools for treating patients carrying pathogenic germline variants. Another important problem is the high toxicity of standard leukemia treatment strategies, which cause adverse events such as neurotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, cardiotoxicity, gastrointestinal complications, secondary malignancies, and so on. The definition of prognostic markers of toxic effects will enable prevention and effective rehabilitation, which will undoubtedly improve patient survival. 

In this Special Issue, we invite submissions of reviews and original articles in the field of pediatric leukemia research. Particular attention will be paid to manuscripts describing new molecular targets for specialized therapies that will lead to improved outcomes in childhood leukemia and new molecular markers and methods for monitoring minimal residual disease and assessing treatment response and risk of relapse, as well as individualizing treatment in the case of inherited syndromes or severe toxicity and complications.

We look forward to your valuable contributions to this Issue.

Prof. Dr. Tatiana Nasedkina
Guest Editor

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 1685 KiB  
Article
Metabolic Fingerprint in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
by Maria T. Papadopoulou, Paraskevi Panagopoulou, Efstathia Paramera, Alexandros Pechlivanis, Christina Virgiliou, Eugenia Papakonstantinou, Maria Palabougiouki, Maria Ioannidou, Eleni Vasileiou, Athanasios Tragiannidis, Evangelos Papakonstantinou, Georgios Theodoridis, Emmanuel Hatzipantelis and Athanasios Evangeliou
Diagnostics 2024, 14(7), 682; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics14070682 - 24 Mar 2024
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1343
Abstract
Introduction: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most prevalent childhood malignancy. Despite high cure rates, several questions remain regarding predisposition, response to treatment, and prognosis of the disease. The role of intermediary metabolism in the individualized mechanistic pathways of the disease is unclear. [...] Read more.
Introduction: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most prevalent childhood malignancy. Despite high cure rates, several questions remain regarding predisposition, response to treatment, and prognosis of the disease. The role of intermediary metabolism in the individualized mechanistic pathways of the disease is unclear. We have hypothesized that children with any (sub)type of ALL have a distinct metabolomic fingerprint at diagnosis when compared: (i) to a control group; (ii) to children with a different (sub)type of ALL; (iii) to the end of the induction treatment. Materials and Methods: In this prospective case–control study (NCT03035344), plasma and urinary metabolites were analyzed in 34 children with ALL before the beginning (D0) and at the end of the induction treatment (D33). Their metabolic fingerprint was defined by targeted analysis of 106 metabolites and compared to that of an equal number of matched controls. Multivariate and univariate statistical analyses were performed using SIMCAP and scripts under the R programming language. Results: Metabolomic analysis showed distinct changes in patients with ALL compared to controls on both D0 and D33. The metabolomic fingerprint within the patient group differed significantly between common B-ALL and pre-B ALL and between D0 and D33, reflecting the effect of treatment. We have further identified the major components of this metabolic dysregulation, indicating shifts in fatty acid synthesis, transfer and oxidation, in amino acid and glycerophospholipid metabolism, and in the glutaminolysis/TCA cycle. Conclusions: The disease type and time point-specific metabolic alterations observed in pediatric ALL are of particular interest as they may offer potential for the discovery of new prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Diagnosis and Management of Pediatric Leukemia)
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12 pages, 1509 KiB  
Article
Prognostic Role of CD200 in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Patients
by Mohamed Khalil, Nahla Elsharkawy, Mona Mohsen Elmawardy and Mahmoud Aly Ayoub
Diagnostics 2023, 13(2), 325; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics13020325 - 16 Jan 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1956
Abstract
Background: Overexpression of CD200 in ALL patients indicates that it may be useful in the characterization of leukemia initiating cells (LIC). We aim at investigating the expression pattern of CD200 on leukemic B cells and the correlation of CD200 expression with various clinical [...] Read more.
Background: Overexpression of CD200 in ALL patients indicates that it may be useful in the characterization of leukemia initiating cells (LIC). We aim at investigating the expression pattern of CD200 on leukemic B cells and the correlation of CD200 expression with various clinical and laboratory findings in 62 newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients. Methods: All patients were subjected to full history taking, a thorough clinical examination, and laboratory investigations, which included complete blood count (CBC), BM aspiration, immunophenotyping of blast cells, and CD200 expression. Results: There is a higher statistically significant mean value of CD200 expression among the cases (66.15 ± 23.08) than the control group (0.37 ± 0.2) (p value ≤ 0.001). CD200 expression shows a significant correlation with total leucocytic count and hemoglobin level (p = 0.001, 0.03, respectively). Conclusions: This study showed that CD200 expression was expressed in 100% of the patients. Correlations between CD200 expression and different laboratory data of patients revealed that there was an impact of CD200 on different diagnostic findings. After the follow-up of the patients, we found that the use of PRISM function of the software could add value to the detection of minimal residual disease. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Diagnosis and Management of Pediatric Leukemia)
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