Why is My Patient Neutropenic?
Neutropenia is a common reason for hematology consultations in the inpatient and outpatient settings and is defined as an absolute neutrophil count less than 1500 cells/μL. Neutropenia varies in severity,…
HEMATOLOGY
Why Does My Patient Have Leukocytosis?
Leukocytosis is one of the most common laboratory abnormalities in medicine, and one of the most frequent reasons for hematologic consultation. Effective evaluation of leukocytosis requires an attentive history, careful…
Why Does My Patient Have Erythrocytosis?
Primary polycythemias are the result of intrinsic abnormalities of the hematopoietic progenitors that lead to constitutive overproduction of red cells accompanied by low erythropoietin (EPO) levels. Secondary polycythemias are caused…
Why is My Patient Anemic?
Anemia is a decreased number of circulating red blood cells and is a common medical condition faced in clinical practice. Anemia is caused by loss of red blood cells, destruction…
Why Does My Patient Have Thrombocytopenia?
Thrombocytopenia, usually defined as a platelet count of less than 150,000/μL, is a common reason for a hematology consult in both the inpatient and outpatient setting. In most patients, the…
The Antifolates
This article focuses on the cellular, biochemical, and molecular pharmacology of antifolates and how a basic understanding of the mechanism of action of methotrexate, its cytotoxic determinants, mechanisms of resistance,…
Role of Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors in the Treatment of Lymphomas and Multiple Myeloma
Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACI) have allowed pharmacologic manipulation of deregulated genes in cancer cells and have shown single-agent activity against T cell lymphomas, cutaneous T cell lymphomas, mantle cell lymphomas,…
Poly(Adenosine Diphosphate–Ribose) Polymerase Inhibitors in Cancer Treatment
Recently, the development of poly(adenosine diphosphate–ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors as a synthetic lethality approach has brought a major breakthrough in the treatment of breast cancer susceptibility gene (BRCA)-mutant cancers. Because…
Targeting the Hedgehog Pathway
The Hedgehog (Hh) pathway is a signaling cascade that is evolutionally highly conserved and plays an important role in embryonic pattern formation and stem cell response to tissue damage. Given…
Antimitotic Inhibitors
Of the agents available in the treatment of both solid and hematologic cancers, microtubule-targeted agents are among the most widely used and exploiting other mechanisms involving the microtubule and its…
