August Charles Stuart

Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Penn State College of Medicine · Department of Medicine

Classical MCL (cMCL) constitutes 6-8% of all B cell NHL. Despite recent advances, MCL is incurable except with allogeneic stem cell transplant. Blastic mantle cell lymphoma (bMCL) is a rarer subtype of cMCL associated with an aggressive clinical course and poor treatment response, frequent relapse and poor outcomes. We treated 13 bMCL patients with...

Several symptoms have been connected to increased healthcare resource utilization (HRU) in the context of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including both Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). This study was designed to investigate the prevalence of IBD-associated symptoms and to determine whether any are independently associated with H...

Background and Aims COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy varies across the USA. Data on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are lacking. We assessed COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and its associated variables in patients with IBD. Methods We evaluated voluntary patient survey responses during routine clinical visits to o...

BACKGROUND: Psychiatric disorders, including anxiety and depression, are significantly more common in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. We established an integrated psychiatry clinic for IBD patients at our tertiary center IBD clinic to provide patients with critical, but frequently unavailable, coordinated mental health services. We undert...

AIMS Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at increased risk of substance use. Research on drug consumption in patients with IBD has primarily focused on use of individual substances. Little is known about polysubstance use (concurrent use of two or more drugs/substances of abuse) (PSU) in this context. We evaluated the incidence, pred...

Introduction: Cannabis use is common in the setting of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Patients frequently use cannabis to treat IBD-associated symptoms, and there is evidence that cannabis and its derivatives are helpful for this purpose. However, it is unclear how the symptom profiles of active IBD cannabis users and nonusers compare and how th...

Background Polysubstance Use (PSU), the use of two or more substances of abuse, has been associated with increased risk for development of psychiatric conditions and early death compared to both monosubstance use or no substance use. The vast majority of clinical research on prescription or recreational drug consumption in patients with inflammator...

Objectives Inflammation is an important driver of abdominal pain in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). However, some patients in remission still experience pain. We aimed to identify risk factors associated with abdominal pain in quiescent IBD (QP-IBD) and to characterize differences from patients with active disease experiencing pain (AP-IBD).Metho...

Background: Many factors impact nutritional status in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We undertook this study to evaluate the potential role that abdominal pain has on weight loss and dietary behavior in IBD. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study utilizing data from an IBD registry at our institution between January 1, 2015 and August...

Purpose: Anxiety and depression (A&D) are more common in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and in IBD patients who undergo proctocolectomy with ileal pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA). Our aim was to test the hypothesis that chronic inflammatory conditions in IPAA are associated with increased incidence of A&D. Methods: Retrospective cohort study at...

Introduction: Anemia is common in patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) which includes Crohn’s disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC).Anemia may result from malabsorption, chronic blood loss or from treatment. Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW) is a simple and inexpensive test which is widely available. It is also a reliable index of anis...

Background Ulcerative colitis (UC) patients who undergo proctocolectomy with ileal pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA) may develop pouchitis, a poorly understood inflammatory condition. There is controversy over whether tobacco use can protect against pouchitis. We undertook this investigation to further evaluate whether smoking reduces the risk of devel...

Background Individuals with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at increased risk of developing anxiety or depression (A&D). Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) with comorbid A&D are both more challenging to manage. IBD providers need to better understand the causes and impact of A&D in order to improve care for IBD patients. We sough...

Background: “Silent” inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), or active inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) without significant concurrent symptoms, is a poorly understood clinical phenomenon that has been associated with increased risk for development of advanced complications and need for surgery. However, definitions of this condition vary and little is k...

Background: Abdominal pain has been associated with a negative impact on quality of life and other key outcomes including nutritional status in the setting of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). However, it is less clear if this effect is related to an independent influence of the symptom itself or the underlying intestinal inflammation frequently as...

BACKGROUND: Chronic abdominal pain is a common, often crippling symptom in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that has previously been associated with increased inflammatory burden and coincident anxiety or depression. Pain can occur in all phases and forms of IBD but the underlying drivers may not always be the same. This study was undertaken to fur...

BACKGROUND: Individuals with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are more likely to develop affective spectrum disorders (ASD) when compared to age-matched healthy counterparts. Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are often more challenging in the setting of ASD and is often associated with poor quality of life and increased healthcare co...

Background Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are more likely to develop affective spectrum disorders (ASD), including anxiety and depression, when compared to their age-matched counterparts. Management of both ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) is more challenging in the setting...

Background Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including both ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), are likely to develop a wide variety of problematic symptoms. The symptom burden, or patient-reported number, frequency and severity of these issues, has a significant bearing on patient quality of life, healthcare resource ut...

Background Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with inflammatory bowel disease and affective spectrum disorders (ASD) utilize a significant amount of health care resources, particularly when compared to many other chronic gastrointestinal and psychiatric conditions respectively. Given the frequent co-incidence of these disorders, we...

Background Nurse navigators are a recently described addition to healthcare teams that primarily focus on care-coordination. To date, their role has primarily been limited to the field of oncology due to the complexities of the disease process and potential for disjointed care. The management of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients can be chal...

T cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL) is a rare, mature T cell neoplasm with distinct features and an aggressive clinical course. Early relapse and short overall survival are commonplace. Use of the monoclonal anti-CD52 antibody alemtuzumab has improved the rate of complete remission and duration of response to more than 50% and between 6 and 12 m...

Resistance to ibrutinib (PCI-32765) is uncommon and not well described. Here we describe a 78 year old Caucasian man with a long standing history of CLL originally diagnosed in 2004. He was treated at the James Cancer Hospital and Fellow Research Institute at the Ohio State University since that time and received multiple regimens including fludara...

Previously, we reported that epigenetic therapy with cladribine, SAHA, and rituximab (SCR) for newly diagnosed mantle cell lymphoma was remarkably effective, with 100% overall response rate, 85-90% CR rate, and durable responses( Hasanali, AACR,2013 LBA140). Over 40 patients now have been enrolled with all patients completing therapy. Final respons...

Background: Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is an incurable disease in which there is no accepted standard of care. While dose intensive approaches are effective, we and others have shown that cladribine and rituximab (RTX) combination therapy is well tolerated and can induce durable remissions. The synergistic effect observed with the combination of cl...

Gastrointestinal malignancies, including colorectal cancer (CRC), pancreatic cancer, and esophageal cancer, have been classically seen as genetic diseases, involving mutations and/or deletions in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Recent evidence demonstrates that epigenetic changes coexist with these genetic changes and contribute to the malign...

2454 Background T-Cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL) is an aggressive hematological disease mainly affecting adults. It is characterized by skin involvement and high lymphocyte counts. It affects mature T-cells mainly of the CD4+/CD8- phenotype. Although treatment with alemtuzumab, an anti-CD52 monoclonal antibody (mAb), induces complete remissi...

4619 Rituximab is an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody that has significant activity in B cell lymphomas that express the cell surface protein CD20. The mechanism of its antitumor effects in vivo are not clear but include direct apoptotic effects, complement mediated cytotoxicity (CMC), and antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). Previously we...

6616 Background: T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL) is characterized by high lymphocyte counts, skin involvement and enlarged organs. Treatment with alemtuzumab (alem) induces complete remission (CR) in >50% of patients, duration is short (median: 6 mos). Therapy with the histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) vorinostat (SAHA) or romidepsin (r...

e18500 Background: The blastic variant (BV) form of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is a rare and aggressive subtype of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) for which no standard of care exists. Ofatumumab is a CD20-directed monoclonal antibody (mAb) FDA approved for the treatment of patients with CLL. We retrospectively studied relapsed BV of MCL in patients t...

1373 Cyclin D1 (CCND1) expression is deregulated epigenetically in mantle cell lymphoma by the t(11;14) chromosome translocation. We have investigated the phenomenon of cyclin D1 mediated oncogene addiction in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and multiple myeloma (MM) cell lines. Gene targeting methods were utilized to generate Cyclin D1(-) MCL and MM ce...

2440 T-Cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL) is an aggressive chemotherapy-resistant hematological malignancy. This disease is more frequently reported in men and is exclusively reported in adults. Raised lymphocyte count, skin lesions and enlarged organs are the frequent clinical symptoms evident in this disease. T-PLL affects mature post-thymic T-...

The identification of distinct prostate cancer stem cell biomarkers is necessary as researchers attempt to isolate, characterize, and therapeutically target these tumor initiating cells. However, in reading the current literature it is frequently difficult to discern which biomarkers and cellular characteristics identify prostate cancer stem cells...

The prostate-specific homeodomain protein NKX3.1 is a tumor suppressor that is commonly down-regulated in human prostate cancer. Using an NKX3.1 affinity column, we isolated topoisomerase I (Topo I) from a PC-3 prostate cancer cell extract. Topo I is a class 1B DNA-resolving enzyme that is ubiquitously expressed in higher organisms and many prokary...

The past three decades have seen an unremitting quest to identify and understand gastrointestinal stem cells, their plasticity in differentiating across cell types, as well as their role in normal, regenerative, and cancer cells. A fascinating hallmark of stem cells is their ability to undergo assymetric cell division, which entails replication of...

Desmoplakin (DP) is a key component of cellular adhesion junctions known as desmosomes; however, recent investigations have revealed a novel location for DP in junctions separate from desmosomes termed complexus adherens junctions. These junctions are found at contact sites between endothelial cells that line capillaries. Few studies have focused o...