This week in Blood: Jan. 10, 2013

Welcome to "This Week in Blood," a weekly snapshot of the hottest studies from each week's issue of Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), hand-picked by Blood Editor-in-Chief Bob Löwenberg, MD, and Deputy Editor Nancy Berliner, MD.

Systemic delivery of a TLR7 agonist in combination with radiation primes durable anti-tumor immune responses in mouse models of lymphoma, Dovedi et al.

This week's plenary paper offers a promising potential new immunotherapeutic modality for the treatment of lymphoma. The authors present convincing data to suggest that a toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) agonist sensitizes tumor cells to radiotherapy. In a mouse model, this increases radiation-induced cell death and prolongs responses.

Model-based decision rules reduce the risk of molecular relapse after cessation of tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy in chronic myeloid leukemia, Horn et al.

The success of tyrosine kinase inhibitors in the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) has led to early investigation of the safety of discontinuing therapy for patients with prolonged deep response to treatment. In this manuscript, Horn and colleagues present a way of predicting the safety of therapy discontinuation.

This manuscript, featured as this week's Perspective, discusses how our understanding of the pathophysiology of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and other hematologic malignancies has been transformed over the last year with the discovery of the prevalence and prognostic significance of mutations in genes encoding the cellular splicing machinery.

Blood (www.bloodjournal.com), the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field of hematology, is available weekly in print and online. Blood is the official journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) (www.hematology.org), the world's largest professional society concerned with the causes and treatment of blood disorders.

ASH's mission is to further the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting blood, bone marrow, and the immunologic, hemostatic, and vascular systems by promoting research, clinical care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology.

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