Neoplasms Commons^™

Breast Cancer Prevalence Among Patients Referred For Ultrasound-Guided Biopsy At Kenyatta National Hospital, Kenya, Angeline Anyona Aywak, Timothy Musila Mutala, Purity Ndaiga, Callen Onyambu, Sughra Raza

Journal of Global Radiology

Purpose: To establish the prevalence of cancer in patients referred for breast ultrasound-guided biopsy at Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya.

Methods and Materials: A total number of 115 patients were included after approval from the local ethical review committee. The patients were referred by clinicians for ultrasound-guided biopsy for palpable breast lesions confirmed by imaging as solid masses. Detailed ultrasound examination per American College of Radiology (ACR) guidelines was performed before core biopsy or fine needle aspiration (FNA). Histological diagnosis was made and prevalence of cancer analyzed.

Results: Of the 115 patients, final histology was available for 112 lesions; two ...

The Pathology Of Cancer, Chi Young Ok, Bruce A. Woda, Elizabeth Kurian

Cancer Concepts: A Guidebook for the Non-Oncologist

Patients and physicians depend on pathologists to make the diagnosis of cancer and of the specific type of cancer. Pathologists are expert in pattern recognition and in the natural history of diseases, including cancers. This chapter in Cancer Concepts: A Guidebook for the Non-Oncologist will describe the pathology of cancer.

Racial Disparity Among Women Diagnosed With Invasive Breast Cancer In A Large Integrated Health System, Maharaj Singh, Santhi D. Konduri, George C. Bobustuc, Amin B. Kassam, Richard A. Rovin

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Purpose: Reasons for the well-described disparity in outcomes between African American (AA) and non-Hispanic white (NHW) women with invasive breast cancer are unclear, making it difficult to identify solutions. This study examined the effects of demographics, biomarkers, tumor characteristics, cancer stage, morphology, and treatment variables on overall and cancer-free survival in these patient populations.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed data for 6231 patients diagnosed with invasive breast cancer throughout an integrated health system from January 2006 through March 2015. Included for analysis were 5023 NHW and 413 AA women. All category and continuous variables in the study were described in the ...

Development And Validation Of A New Mri Simulation Technique That Can Reliably Estimate Optimal In Vivo Scanning Parameters In A Glioblastoma Murine Model, Andrea Protti, Kristen L. Jones, Dennis M. Bonal, Lei Qin, Letterio S. Politi, Sasha Kravets, Quang-De Nguyen, Annick D. Van Den Abbeele

Radiology Publications and Presentations

BACKGROUND: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) relies on optimal scanning parameters to achieve maximal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and high contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) between tissues resulting in high quality images. The optimization of such parameters is often laborious, time consuming, and user-dependent, making harmonization of imaging parameters a difficult task. In this report, we aim to develop and validate a computer simulation technique that can reliably provide "optimal in vivo scanning parameters" ready to be used for in vivo evaluation of disease models.

METHODS: A glioblastoma murine model was investigated using several MRI imaging methods. Such MRI methods underwent a simulated and ...

Pre-Diagnosis Plasma Immune Markers And Risk Of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma In Two Prospective Cohort Studies, Mara M. Epstein, Bernard Rosner, Elizabeth C. Breen, Julie L. Batista, Edward L. Giovannucci, Larry Magpantay, Jon C. Aster, Scott J. Rodig, Kimberly A. Bertrand, Francine Laden, Otoniel Martinez-Maza, Brenda M. Birmann

Open Access Articles

Inflammation and B-cell hyperactivation have been associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma development. This prospective analysis aimed to further elucidate pre-diagnosis plasma immune marker profiles associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk. We identified 598 incident lymphoma cases and 601 matched controls in Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study participants with archived pre-diagnosis plasma samples and measured 13 immune marker levels with multiplexed immunoassays. Using multivariable logistic regression we calculated odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals per standard deviation unit increase in biomarker concentration for risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and major histologic subtype, stratifying additional models by years ( < 5, 5 to < 10, > /=10) after blood draw ...

Editorial: Controversies In The Local Management Of Lung Cancer, John M. Varlotto, Giulia Veronesi

Open Access Articles

At the time we agreed to edit this special edition of Frontiers in early 2017, the immunotherapy revolution was already established in the second-line treatment of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and even to a select group of patients (those whose tumor cells expressed PD-L1 of ≥50%) in the first-line treatment of metastatic disease. We felt that the summarization and understanding of the strengths and benefits of our local modalities were needed prior to the possible integration of immunotherapy into the treatment paradigms of Stages I–III NSCLC and small cell lung cancer (SCLC).

Tgf-Β Sustains Tumor Progression Through Biochemical And Mechanical Signal Transduction., Robert L Furler, Douglas F Nixon, Christine A Brantner, Anastas Popratiloff, Christel H Uittenbogaart

Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine Faculty Publications

Transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) signaling transduces immunosuppressive biochemical and mechanical signals in the tumor microenvironment. In addition to canonical SMAD transcription factor signaling, TGF-β can promote tumor growth and survival by inhibiting proinflammatory signaling and extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling. In this article, we review how TGF-β activated kinase 1 (TAK1) activation lies at the intersection of proinflammatory signaling by immune receptors and anti-inflammatory signaling by TGF-β receptors. Additionally, we discuss the role of TGF-β in the mechanobiology of cancer. Understanding how TGF-β dampens proinflammatory responses and induces pro-survival mechanical signals throughout cancer development is critical for designing therapeutics that ...

Economic Evaluation Of Patient Navigation Programs In Colorectal Cancer Care, A Systematic Review., Chloé Gervès-Pinquié, Anne Girault, Serena Phillips, Sarah Raskin, Mandi Pratt-Chapman

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

Patient navigation has expanded as a promising approach to improve cancer care coordination and patient adherence. This paper addresses the need to identify the evidence on the economic impact of patient navigation in colorectal cancer, following the Health Economic Evaluation Publication Guidelines. Articles indexed in Medline, Cochrane, CINAHL, and Web of Science between January 2000 and March 2017 were analyzed. We conducted a systematic review of the literature using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The quality assessment of the included studies was based on the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) checklist. Inclusion criteria ...

Cip2a Facilitates The G1/S Cell Cycle Transition Via B-Myb In Human Papillomavirus 16 Oncoprotein E6-Expressing Cells, Yonghao Tian, Hanxiang Chen, Lijun Qiao, Wenhao Zhang, Jingyi Zheng, Weiming Zhao, Jason J. Chen, Weifang Zhang

Open Access Articles

Infection with high-risk human papillomaviruses (HR-HPVs, including HPV-16, HPV-18, HPV-31) plays a central aetiologic role in the development of cervical carcinoma. The transforming properties of HR-HPVs mainly reside in viral oncoproteins E6 and E7. E6 protein degrades the tumour suppressor p53 and abrogates cell cycle checkpoints. Cancerous inhibitor of protein phosphatase 2A (CIP2A) is an oncoprotein that is involved in the carcinogenesis of many human malignancies. Our previous data showed that CIP2A was overexpressed in cervical cancer. However, the regulation of CIP2A by HPV-16E6 remains to be elucidated. In this study, we demonstrated that HPV-16E6 significantly up-regulated CIP2A mRNA and ...

Pd-L1 Is Expressed On Human Platelets And Is Affected By Immune Checkpoint Therapy, Verena Rolfes, Christian Idel, Ralph Pries, Kirstin Plotze-Martin, Jens Habermann, Timo Gemoll, Sabine Bohnet, Eicke Latz, Julika Ribbat-Idel, Bernardo S. Franklin, Barbara Wollenberg

Open Access Articles

Cancer immunotherapy has been revolutionised by drugs that enhance the ability of the immune system to detect and fight tumors. Immune checkpoint therapies that target the programmed death-1 receptor (PD-1), or its ligand (PD-L1) have shown unprecedented rates of durable clinical responses in patients with various cancer types. However, there is still a large fraction of patients that do not respond to checkpoint inhibitors, and the challenge remains to find cellular and molecular cues that could predict which patients would benefit from these therapies. Using a series of qualitative and quantitative methods we show here that PBMCs and platelets from ...

Phytobiological Warfare: An Evolutionary Approach To Botanical Medicine, Guillermo Ruiz Nmd, Tiffany Turner, Jeffrey Langland

Journal of Evolution and Health

No abstract provided.

The Cjun Nh2-Terminal Kinase (Jnk) Signaling Pathway Promotes Genome Stability And Prevents Tumor Initiation, Nomeda A. Girnius, Yvonne J. K. Edwards, David S. Garlick, Roger J. Davis

University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy in women. Analysis of breast cancer genomic DNA indicates frequent loss-of-function mutations in components of the cJUN NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway. Since JNK signaling can promote cell proliferation by activating the AP1 transcription factor, this apparent association of reduced JNK signaling with tumor development was unexpected. We examined the effect of JNK deficiency in the murine breast epithelium. Loss of JNK signaling caused genomic instability and the development of breast cancer. Moreover, JNK deficiency caused widespread early neoplasia and rapid tumor formation in a murine model of breast cancer. This tumor ...

Imp3 Stabilization Of Wnt5b Mrna Facilitates Taz Activation In Breast Cancer, Sanjoy Samanta, Santosh Guru, Ameer L. Elaimy, John J. Amante, Jianhong Ou, Jun Yu, Lihua Julie Zhu, Arthur M. Mercurio

Open Access Articles

Insulin-like growth factor-2 mRNA-binding protein 3 (IMP3) is an oncofetal protein associated with many aggressive cancers and implicated in the function of breast cancer stem cells (CSCs). The mechanisms involved, however, are poorly understood. We observed that IMP3 facilitates the activation of TAZ, a transcriptional co-activator of Hippo signaling that is necessary for the function of breast CSCs. The mechanism by which IMP3 activates TAZ involves both mRNA stability and transcriptional regulation. IMP3 stabilizes the mRNA of an alternative WNT ligand (WNT5B) indirectly by repressing miR145-5p, which targets WNT5B, resulting in TAZ activation by alternative WNT signaling. IMP3 also facilitates ...

Immunohistochemical Expression And Prognostic Value Of Pd-L1 In Extrapulmonary Small Cell Carcinoma: A Single Institution Experience, Mohammed Salhab, Yazan Migdady, Melanie Donahue, Yiqin Xiong, Karen A. Dresser, William Walsh, Benjamin J. Chen, James Liebmann

Open Access Articles

BACKGROUND: Extrapulmonary small cell carcinomas (ESCC) are rare but aggressive tumors. Relapses are common despite treatment with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. Prospective data for treatment of ESCC are lacking; treatment of these cancers usually incorporates lung small cell carcinoma treatment recommendations. Cancer staging remains the most important prognostic factor. Cancer immunotherapy targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway has shown efficacy in multiple tumor types, and could be an appealing treatment strategy for these rare tumors.

METHODS: We investigated PD-L1 expression by immunochemistry (IHC) in ESCCs diagnosed at University of Massachusetts Medical Center, from 1999 to 2016. 34 cases with sufficient material ...

Imp3 Stabilization Of Wnt5b Mrna Facilitates Taz Activation In Breast Cancer, Sanjoy Samanta, Santosh Guru, Ameer L. Elaimy, John J. Amante, Jianhong Ou, Jun Yu, Lihua Julie Zhu, Arthur M. Mercurio

University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications

Insulin-like growth factor-2 mRNA-binding protein 3 (IMP3) is an oncofetal protein associated with many aggressive cancers and implicated in the function of breast cancer stem cells (CSCs). The mechanisms involved, however, are poorly understood. We observed that IMP3 facilitates the activation of TAZ, a transcriptional co-activator of Hippo signaling that is necessary for the function of breast CSCs. The mechanism by which IMP3 activates TAZ involves both mRNA stability and transcriptional regulation. IMP3 stabilizes the mRNA of an alternative WNT ligand (WNT5B) indirectly by repressing miR145-5p, which targets WNT5B, resulting in TAZ activation by alternative WNT signaling. IMP3 also facilitates ...

Poorly Cytotoxic Terminally Differentiated Cd56(Neg)Cd16(Pos) Nk Cells Accumulate In Kenyan Children With Burkitt Lymphomas, Catherine Forconi, Cormac P. Cosgrove, Pryia Saikumar-Lakshmi, Christina E. Nixon, Joslyn Foley, John Michael Ong'echa, Juliana A. Otieno, Galit Alter, Christian Munz, Ann M. Moormann

Open Access Articles

Natural killer (NK) cells are critical for restricting viral infections and mediating tumor immunosurveillance. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Plasmodium falciparum malaria are known risk factors for endemic Burkitt lymphoma (eBL), the most common childhood cancer in equatorial Africa. To date, the composition and function of NK cells have not been evaluated in eBL etiology or pathogenesis. Therefore, using multiparameter flow cytometry and in vitro killing assays, we compared NK cells from healthy children and children diagnosed with eBL in Kenya. We defined 5 subsets based on CD56 and CD16 expression, including CD56(neg)CD16(pos) We found that licensed and ...

2'-5'-Oligoadenylate Synthetase 1 (Oas1) And Health Disparities In Prostate Cancer, Aisha S. Hunt

Electronic Theses & Dissertations Collection for Atlanta University & Clark Atlanta University

2’ -5’ –oligoadenylate synthetase 1 (OAS1) is an antiviral enzyme that in the presence of double-stranded RNA structures, such as viral genomes or single-stranded RNA transcripts with significant double-stranded character, converts ATP to a series of 2’ -5’ –oligoadenylates (2-5A). 2-5A promotes dimerization of latent ribonuclease (RNaseL) to form catalytically active RNaseL, a candidate hereditary prostate cancer (PCa) gene. RNaseL is anti-proliferative and promotes senescence and apoptosis in PCa cells. Genotyping analysis was completed on over 600 genomic DNA samples from African-American and Caucasian, normal and PCa subjects. Genotyping was performed to screen the following SNPs in the last exon ...

Systematic Pan-Cancer Analysis Of Somatic Allele Frequency, Liam Spurr, Muzi Li, Nawaf Alomran, Qianqian Zhang, Paula Restrepo, Mercedeh Movassagh, Chris Trenkov, Nerissa Tunnessen, Tatiyana Apanasovich, Keith A. Crandall, Nathan Edwards, Anelia Horvath

Open Access Articles

Imbalanced expression of somatic alleles in cancer can suggest functional and selective features, and can therefore indicate possible driving potential of the underlying genetic variants. To explore the correlation between allele frequency of somatic variants and total gene expression of their harboring gene, we used the unique data set of matched tumor and normal RNA and DNA sequencing data of 5523 distinct single nucleotide variants in 381 individuals across 10 cancer types obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We analyzed the allele frequency in the context of the variant and gene functional features and linked it with changes in ...

Insurance Coverage Policies For Pharmacogenomic And Multi-Gene Testing For Cancer, Christine Y. Lu, Stephanie Loomer, Rachel Ceccarelli, Kathleen M. Mazor, James Sabin, Ellen Wright Clayton, Geoffrey S. Ginsburg, Ann Chen Wu

Open Access Articles

Insurance coverage policies are a major determinant of patient access to genomic tests. The objective of this study was to examine differences in coverage policies for guideline-recommended pharmacogenomic tests that inform cancer treatment. We analyzed coverage policies from eight Medicare contractors and 10 private payers for 23 biomarkers (e.g., HER2 and EGFR) and multi-gene tests. We extracted policy coverage and criteria, prior authorization requirements, and an evidence basis for coverage. We reviewed professional society guidelines and their recommendations for use of pharmacogenomic tests. Coverage for KRAS, EGFR, and BRAF tests were common across Medicare contractors and private payers, but ...

The Role Of Race And Economic Characteristics In The Presentation And Survival Of Patients With Surgically Resected Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, John M. Varlotto, Kerrie Mckie, Rickie P. Voland, John C. Flickinger, Malcolm M. Decamp, Debra Maddox, Paul Rava, Thomas J. Fitzgerald, William Walsh, Paulo Oliveira, Negar Rassaei, Jennifer Baima, Karl Uy

Open Access Articles

Background: Little is understood regarding the inter-relation between economic, marital, and racial/ethnic differences in presentation and survival of surgically resected lung cancer patients. Our investigation will assess these differences in addition to known therapeutic, patient, and histopathologic factors.

Methods: A retrospective review of the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Reporting database was conducted through the years 2007-2012. The population was split into nine different ethnic groups. Population differences were assessed via chi-square testing. Multivariable analysis (MVA) were used to detect overall survival (OS) differences in the total surgical population (TS, N = 35,689) in an ear (T1-T2 < 4 cm N0) surgical population [early-stage resectable (ESR), N = 17,931]. Lung cancer-specific survival (LCSS) was assessed in the ESR.

Results: In the ...