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Virus-specific T-cells (VSTs) from third-party donors mediate short- and long-term antiviral effects in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients with relapsed or refractory viral infections. We investigated early administration of third-party VSTs, together with antiviral therapy in patients requiring treatment for first cytomegalovirus (CMV) or Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. Thirty HSCT patients were treated with 1 to 4 VST infusions (2 × 107 cells/m2; CMV n=27, EBV n=3) at a median of 4 days after initiation of antiviral treatment. The overall viral response rate was 100%, with a complete response (CR) rate of 94%. Of the 28 patients who achieved a CR, 23 remained virus PCR negative (n=9) or below quantitation limit (n=14) for the duration of follow-up. Four patients had brief episodes of quantifiable reactivation not requiring additional therapy, and one required a second infusion after initial CR, remaining PCR negative thereafter. All 3 patients treated for EBV post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder achieved sustained CR. Rates of aGVHD and cGVHD after infusion were 13% and 23%, respectively. There were no serious infusion-related adverse events. VST infusion was associated with rapid recovery of CD8+CD45RA−CD62L− and a slower recovery of CD4+CD45RA−CD62L− effector memory T-cells; CMV-specific T-cells comprised up to 13% of CD8+ cells. At 1 year post-transplant, non-relapse mortality was 10%, cumulative incidence of relapse was 7%, overall survival was 88% and 25 of 27 patients had ECOG status of 0 or 1. Early administration of third-party VSTs in conjunction with antiviral treatment appears safe and leads to excellent viral control and clinical outcomes. Registered on Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry as #ACTRN12618000343202.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy is a genetically-modified cellular immunotherapy that has a current established role in the treatment of relapsed/refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, with emerging utility in a spectrum of other haematological and solid organ malignancies. It is associated with a number of characteristic toxicities, most notably cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity, for which laboratory testing can aid in the prediction of severity and in monitoring. Other toxicities, such as cytopenias/marrow hypoplasia, hypogammagloblinaemia and delayed immune reconstitution are recognised and require monitoring due to the implications for infection risk and prophylaxis. The detection or quantitation of circulating CAR-T can be clinically useful, and is achieved through both direct methods, if available, or indirect/surrogate methods. It is important that the laboratory is informed of the CAR-T therapy and target antigen whenever tissue is collected, both for response assessment and investigation of possible relapse, so that the expression of the relevant antigen can be assessed, in order to distinguish antigen-positive and -negative relapses. Finally, the measurement of circulating tumour DNA has an evolving role in the surveillance of malignancy, with evidence of its utility in the post-CAR-T setting, including predicting patients who will inevitably experience frank relapse, potentially allowing for pre-emptive therapy.

The ability to sensitively monitor minimal residual disease (MRD) has played a key role in improving the management and outcomes for a number of leukemias, particularly acute promyelocytic leukemia and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. By contrast, MRD monitoring in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has been limited by variable assay methodologies and a relative paucity of patient-specific MRD markers. Inter- and intratumor genetic heterogeneity poses significant challenges for the identification of molecular markers suitable for MRD monitoring in AML, particularly for those cases without structural chromosomal rearrangements associated with fusion genes. Furthermore, the need to discriminate which mutations may be suitable for MRD monitoring creates additional complexity. The mainstay of current molecular MRD monitoring is real-time quantitative PCR, targeting fusion genes, mutations, and gene overexpression. New technologies, particularly next-generation sequencing approaches, offer new ways to overcome these limitations. Here, the authors review the techniques available for molecular MRD monitoring in AML and discuss their utility in clinical practice.

Approximately one-third of children with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) relapse, requiring re-treatment and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Although achieving second complete remission (CR2) prior to HSCT is desirable, once CR2 is attained, it is unclear if there is any benefit from further chemotherapy prior to HSCT. Moreover, although pre-HSCT minimal residual disease (MRD) has prognostic value in acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the benefit of MRD reduction after achieving CR prior to HSCT is less clear for AML. To address these questions, we analyzed data from pediatric transplant centers in Australia and New Zealand concerning relapsed childhood AML cases occurring between 1998 and 2013. Given the retrospective nature of our analysis and assay data available, we analyzed patients on the basis of measurable residual disease (MeRD) by any methodology, rather than MRD in the conventional sense. We observed improved overall survival (OS) in children receiving two chemotherapy cycles, compared to one cycle or three or more cycles pre-HSCT. Improved OS with two cycles remained significant for patients without MeRD after cycle 1. These data suggest that a second chemotherapy cycle pre-HSCT may improve survival by lowering disease burden. Prospective trials assessing strategies to reduce pre-HSCT MRD in relapsed childhood AML are warranted.

The ability to sensitively monitor minimal residual disease (MRD) has played a key role in improving the management and outcomes for a number of leukemias, particularly acute promyelocytic leukemia and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. By contrast, MRD monitoring in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has been limited by variable assay methodologies and a relative paucity of patient-specific MRD markers. Inter- and intratumor genetic heterogeneity poses significant challenges for the identification of molecular markers suitable for MRD monitoring in AML, particularly for those cases without structural chromosomal rearrangements associated with fusion genes. Furthermore, the need to discriminate which mutations may be suitable for MRD monitoring creates additional complexity. The mainstay of current molecular MRD monitoring is real-time quantitative PCR, targeting fusion genes, mutations, and gene overexpression. New technologies, particularly next-generation sequencing approaches, offer new ways to overcome these limitations. Here, the authors review the techniques available for molecular MRD monitoring in AML and discuss their utility in clinical practice.

BACKGROUND: Ventilator‐associated pneumonia (VAP) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, complicating the medical course of approximately 10% of mechanically‐ventilated patients, with an estimated attributable mortality of 13%. To treat VAP empirically, the American Thoracic Society currently recommends antibiotic therapy based on the patients' risk of colonisation by an organism with multidrug resistance. The selection of initial antibiotic therapy in VAP is important, as inappropriate initial antimicrobial treatment is associated with higher mortality and longer hospital stay in intensive care unit (ICU) patients. While guidelines exist for the antibiotic treatment of hospital‐acquired pneumonia (HAP) from the American Thoracic Society and the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, there are many limitations in the quality of available evidence. This systematic review aimed to summarise the results of all randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that compare empirical antibiotic regimens for VAP. OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this review was to assess the effect of different empirical antimicrobial therapies on the survival and clinical cure of adult patients with ventilator‐associated pneumonia (VAP). Secondary objectives included reporting the incidence of adverse events, new superinfections, length of hospital stay, and length of intensive care unit (ICU) stay associated with these therapies. SEARCH METHODS: We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, Embase, LILACS, CINAHL and Web of Science to December 2015; we searched ClinicalTrials.gov to September 2016. SELECTION CRITERIA: Two review authors independently assessed RCTs comparing empirical antibiotic treatments of VAP in adult patients, where VAP was defined as new‐onset pneumonia that developed more than 48 hours after endotracheal intubation. Physicians and researchers were not required to be blinded for inclusion in this review. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently extracted study data. We pooled studies and analysed them in two ways. We examined monotherapy, or a single experimental antimicrobial drug, versus combination therapy, or multiple experimental antimicrobial drugs. We also examined carbapenem therapy versus non‐carbapenem therapy. MAIN RESULTS: We included 12 studies with 3571 participants. All included studies examined the empiric use of one antimicrobial regimen versus another for the treatment of adults with VAP, but the particular drug regimens examined by each study varied. There was potential for bias because some studies did not report outcomes for all participants. All but one study reported sources of funding or author affiliations with pharmaceutical companies. We found no statistical difference in all‐cause mortality between monotherapy and combination therapy (N = 4; odds ratio (OR) monotherapy versus combination 0.97, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.73 to 1.30), clinical cure (N = 2; OR monotherapy versus combination 0.88, 95% CI 0.56 to 1.36), length of stay in ICU (mean difference (MD) 0.65, 95% CI 0.07 to 1.23) or adverse events (N = 2; OR monotherapy versus combination 0.93, 95% CI 0.68 to 1.26). We downgraded the quality of evidence for all‐cause mortality, adverse events, and length of ICU stay to moderate for this comparison. We determined clinical cure for this comparison to be of very low‐quality evidence. For our second comparison of combination therapy with optional adjunctives only one meta‐analysis could be performed due to a lack of trials comparing the same antibiotic regimens. Two studies compared tigecycline versus imipenem‐cilastatin for clinical cure in the clinically evaluable population and there was a statistically significant increase in clinical cure for imipenem‐cilastatin (N = 2; OR tigecycline versus imipenem‐cilastatin 0.44, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.84). Of importance, this effect was due to a single study. We found no statistical difference in all‐cause mortality between carbapenem and non‐carbapenem therapies (N = 1; OR carbapenem versus non‐carbapenem 0.59, 95% CI 0.30 to 1.19) or adverse events (N = 3; OR carbapenem versus non‐carbapenem 0.78, 95% CI 0.56 to 1.09), but we found that carbapenems are associated with a statistically significant increase in the clinical cure (N = 3; OR carbapenem versus non‐carbapenem 1.53, 95% CI 1.11 to 2.12 for intention‐to‐treat (ITT) analysis and N = 2; OR carbapenem versus non‐carbapenem 2.29, 95% CI 1.19 to 4.43 for clinically evaluable patients analysis). For this comparison we downgraded the quality of evidence for mortality, and clinical cure (ITT and clinically evaluable populations) to moderate. We determined the quality of evidence for adverse events to be low. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: We did not find a difference between monotherapy and combination therapy for the treatment of people with VAP. Since studies did not identify patients with increased risk for multidrug‐resistant bacteria, these data may not be generalisable to all patient groups. However, this is the largest meta‐analysis comparing monotherapy to multiple antibiotic therapies for VAP and contributes further evidence to the safety of using effective monotherapy for the empiric treatment of VAP. Due to lack of studies, we could not evaluate the best antibiotic choice for VAP, but carbapenems as a class may result in better clinical cure than other tested antibiotics.