Cancer

The current study used data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer registry to present epidemiologic data concerning 2537 cases of male breast carcinoma. Findings demonstrated that the incidence of breast carcinoma in men is increasing and that there are epidemiologic and biologic differences between men and women with breast carcinoma.

To achieve a better understanding of the clinical features of pancreatic carcinoma, such as locally aggressive growth, metastasis, and chemotherapy resistance, the authors conducted serial analyses of gene expression profiles and demonstrated that synuclein-γ was overexpressed in human pancreatic carcinoma. The overexpression of synuclein-γ may play a role in pancreatic carcinoma invasion.

In the current report on racial differences in survival based on tumor location and tumor stage, the authors examined African-American patients and Caucasian patients who underwent surgery alone for colorectal adenocarcinoma. The results indicate decreased overall survival at 5 years and 10 years postsurgery for African-American patients who had Stage II colonic adenocarcinoma, but not for those who had rectal tumors. This disparity may not be attributable to tumor stage at diagnosis or treatment.

The current study prospectively examined serial D-dimer levels in patients with metastatic colorectal carcinoma undergoing chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab. Initial D-dimer levels predicted overall survival, and increases in D-dimer levels predicted disease progression. These findings probably reflect the importance of coagulation in tumor angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis.

In the current study, overexpression of coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1) was involved in the development of hormone-dependent prostate carcinoma as well as androgen-independent prostate carcinoma. The authors concluded that because CARM1 is functionally different from most other transcriptional coactivators of androgen receptor, it may serve as a new target for the treatment of hormone-independent prostate carcinoma.

UCN-01 is a protein kinase C inhibitor with potential antitumor activity in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) via vascular endothelial growth factor inhibition. A novel endpoint of time to disease progression was employed to evaluate UCN-01 in RCC. No antitumor activity was observed.

Using a time and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) threshold model, significant differences in long-term biochemical recurrence–free survival between cohorts were established as early as 90 days after external-beam radiotherapy for localized prostate carcinoma. Applying this new model involving a PSA-based early prognosticator of outcome after prostate carcinoma therapy may allow the scientific community to evaluate promising treatment concepts and technologies at a highly accelerated pace.

A prospective serum biomarker study was undertaken to determine the association of serum levels of soluble tumor necrosis factor receptors I (sTNFR-I) and II (sTNFR-II), alone or in association with CA 125, with clinical characteristics and outcomes in patients with epithelial ovarian malignancies. Results suggest that distinct relationships exist between pretreatment serum levels of sTNFR-I or sTNFR-II compared with CA 125 and historically important clinicopathologic variables. This study also provides compelling evidence of a more refined risk assessment model for ovarian cancer progression when serum concentrations of all three biomarkers are simultaneously included in Cox regression analyses.

Tobacco use outcomes among patients with head and neck carcinoma were compared with a group of matched controls from the general population of patients treated for nicotine dependence. The authors found that nicotine dependence treatments were effective among patients with head and neck carcinoma, particularly when delivered shortly after initial diagnosis and for those who received surgery as their primary treatment.

The authors evaluated the effect of tobacco and alcohol use on p15 gene methylation in cells from mouth and throat samples of physically healthy individuals and patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). The results suggested that p15 gene methylation can be induced by chronic smoking and drinking and may play a role in the very early stage of carcinogenesis in HNSCC.

Combined celecoxib and infusional 5-fluorouracil may induce durable, clinically meaningful responses in a minority of patients with far advanced, gemcitabine-resistant/refractory pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma despite negligible toxicity. Further exploration of cyclooxygenase-2 inhibition as a therapeutic strategy in this disease is warranted.

The authors report their experience with an immunochemotherapy regimen, consisting of rituximab and temozolomide, that exhibited efficacy against recurrent PCNSL and against systemic non-Hodgkin lymphoma that had metastasized to the CNS. This immunochemotherapy combination may offer superior efficacy compared with either agent alone.

Over a median follow-up period of 8 years, tumor recurrence was identified in only 3% of 184 patients with supratentorial gangliogliomas. However, malignant progression (2%) and death (1%) also were encountered. A favorable prognosis was associated with Grade 1 disease according to the World Health Organization classification system. Tumor location within the temporal lobe, complete resection of the lesion, and chronic seizures were additional parameters that predicted a favorable outcome after neurosurgical therapy.

A dose-intensive combination of doxorubicin, ifosfamide, and cisplatin with peripheral blood stem cell support improved by ≥ 90% the necrosis rate in patients with bone osteosarcomas and variant bone tumors with a poor prognosis. However, the toxicity profile was significant and limited the duration of postoperative chemotherapy.

Elevation of serum squamous cell carcinoma antigen levels on follow-up without detectable recurrence in patients with cervical carcinoma presents a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. Fluorine-18-labeled fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography expedited the detection of disease recurrence in this setting and thereby allowed earlier intervention, which may have a positive impact on outcome.

Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal carcinoma (HNPCC) is an autosomic disease that carries a high risk of developing colorectal carcinoma as well as other extracolonic tumors, including endometrial carcinoma. Mutations in MLH1 and MSH2 are found in a significant number of families. In the current study, the authors found that the presence of endometrial carcinoma in families with HNPCC conferred a significantly greater probability of detecting a pathogenic mutation, which may have important implications when referring patients for genetic testing.

In the current study, the introduction of granulocyte–colony-stimulating factor (lenograstim) as primary prophylaxis allowed the administration of a standard dose of docetaxel every 14 days with manageable toxicities.

In the current study, the authors performed loss of heterozygosity (LOH) analysis on 26 patients with a diagnosis of papillary urothelial neoplasm of low malignant potential (PUNLMP). Genomic DNA was extracted from formalin-fixed slides using laser capture microdissection. Eighty-one percent of patients with PUNLMP tumors had allelic loss in at least 1 of the DNA loci studied. The high frequency of LOH at various loci suggested that PUNLMP tumors share similar genetic instability with advanced stage (≥ pT2) bladder carcinoma.

A cost-effectiveness analysis showed that aspirin was more effective and less costly than cyclooxygenase-2-selective inhibitors when used for colorectal carcinoma chemoprevention.

These studies indicated that aging of endothelium may contribute to the invasive phenotype of breast carcinoma cells. Furthermore, “cross-talk” between Erb B-2 and epidermal growth factor receptor is required for the intravasion of these cells into the surrounding vasculature.