Hematology
Clinical discussions on blood disorders, coagulation, transfusion medicine, and hematologic malignancies.
Recent Discussions
What is your approach to cancer patients who inquire about alternative or complementary treatments?
It depends a little bit on what specifically they want to use, and if they are truly investigating alternative medicine or complementary medicine. For people seeking full alternative medicine without any conventional treatment, I tell them that a research study showed that people who pursued the alt...
Do you consider co-prescribing hormone therapy and anticoagulation in a patient with prior DVT and uncontrollable VSM uncontrolled by non-hormonal therapies?
While I agree that you need to be thoughtful about adding additional VTE risk to patients with a history of VTE, I am much less concerned when patients are already on full-dose anticoagulation. Especially when the medication is transdermal estrogen, which has the lowest effect on thrombotic risk. I ...
What is your approach to AYA patients with B-cell ALL who relapse after CD19 CAR-T?
This is a somewhat nuanced question based on when the patient relapsed after CAR-T, what CAR-T product they received, whether the patient prior received hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), other salvage therapies that were prior received as well as number of prior relapses. Multiple stra...
Do you perform genetic testing when patients have persistent hypogammaglobulinemia after rituximab therapy?
I would not routinely perform genetic testing. Multicenter studies (Labrosse et al., PMID 33862010; and Otttaviano et al., PMID 35892275) show that genetic testing returns a low yield, <5%. Several authors suggest that the risk of persistent hypogammaglobulinemia due to PID is increased if there is ...
How would you work up a patient with cutaneous mastocytosis?
In adults, consider mastocytosis as being systemic until you prove it is not. A single normal or low-elevated tryptase does not eliminate the possibility of systemic mastocytosis. All patients should go to Heme/Onc for consideration of bone marrow biopsy and ideally high-sensitivity PCR to look for ...
What induction regimen would you consider for KMT2A-rearranged AML in a young patient with multiple medical co-morbidities who is ineligible for clinical trials?
Given the mention of medical comorbidities and ineligibility for trials, I am going to assume that the patient cannot be treated with an intensive induction regimen. With this in mind, a lower-intensity approach such as azacitidine + venetoclax would be my recommendation. Survival outcomes in adult ...
Does anyone utilize P2Y12 assays to determine if clopidogrel may be ineffective when used for DAPT?
Yes, I use P2Y12 assays in two distinct settings. Medical management: If a patient on clopidogrel mono/dual therapy has disease progression with ICAD or experiences a recurrent ischemic event, I obtain a P2Y12 assay to assess responsiveness. This helps guide the decision to switch to ticagrelor and ...
What is the preferred approach for an AYA patient with VHR B-ALL with iAMP21 mutation with an isolated early CNS relapse?
For relapsed high-risk disease such as iAMP21, the recommended approach is to achieve remission followed by consolidation with allogeneic stem cell transplantation. However, in cases of isolated CNS relapse, I favor CAR T-cell therapy first to achieve and deepen CNS remission, as it has demonstrated...
What is your standard for monitoring triglyceride level during therapy for ALL, particularly in regards to receiving pegaspargase?
Routine monitoring of triglyceride levels is not considered standard practice during pegaspargase therapy. Although hypertriglyceridemia is a common side effect of asparaginase treatment, it typically has no significant clinical impact on management decisions or future use of asparaginase. The condi...
What parameters would you use to monitor and interpret iron levels in a hemochromatosis patient where ferritin is unreliable due to underlying chronic inflammation?
The biggest question in these situations is whether the patient truly has iron overload vs. just high ferritin. If iron sat is not elevated, true iron overload is very unlikely. If both ferritin and iron sat are elevated, but they don't have a homozygous C282Y genotype, I make sure that the patient ...