Biomedical Informatics Commons^™

Biomarkers Beyond Brca: Promising Combinatorial Treatment Strategies In Overcoming Resistance To Parp Inhibitors, Yu-Yi Chu, Clinton Yam, Hirohito Yamaguchi, Mien-Chie Hung

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors (PARPi) exploit the concept of synthetic lethality and offer great promise in the treatment of tumors with deficiencies in homologous recombination (HR) repair. PARPi exert antitumor activity by blocking Poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation (PARylation) and trapping PARP1 on damaged DNA. To date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved four PARPi for the treatment of several cancer types including ovarian, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancer. Although patients with HR-deficient tumors benefit from PARPi, majority of tumors ultimately develop acquired resistance to PARPi. Furthermore, even though BRCA1/2 mutations are commonly used as markers of PARPi sensitivity in …

Summit: An Integrative Approach For Better Transcriptomic Data Imputation Improves Causal Gene Identification, Zichen Zhang, Ye Eun Bae, Jonathan R Bradley, Lang Wu, Chong Wu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Genes with moderate to low expression heritability may explain a large proportion of complex trait etiology, but such genes cannot be sufficiently captured in conventional transcriptome-wide association studies (TWASs), partly due to the relatively small available reference datasets for developing expression genetic prediction models to capture the moderate to low genetically regulated components of gene expression. Here, we introduce a method, the Summary-level Unified Method for Modeling Integrated Transcriptome (SUMMIT), to improve the expression prediction model accuracy and the power of TWAS by using a large expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) summary-level dataset. We apply SUMMIT to the eQTL summary-level …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Opioid-Related Overdose Deaths In Texas, Karima Lalani, Christine Bakos-Block, Marylou Cardenas-Turanzas, Sarah Cohen, Bhanumathi Gopal, Tiffany Champagne-Langabeer

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States was facing an epidemic of opioid overdose deaths, clouding accurate inferences about the impact of the pandemic at the population level. We sought to determine the existence of increases in the trends of opioid-related overdose (ORO) deaths in the Greater Houston metropolitan area from January 2015 through December 2021, and to describe the social vulnerability present in the geographic location of these deaths. We merged records from the county medical examiner's office with social vulnerability indexes (SVIs) for the region and present geospatial locations of the aggregated ORO deaths. Time series analyses …

Prevalence Of Prediabetes And Diabetes Vary By Ethnicity Among Us Asian Adults At Healthy Weight, Overweight, And Obesity Ranges: An Electronic Health Record Study, William S Vicks, Joan C Lo, Lynn Guo, Jamal S Rana, Sherry Zhang, Nirmala D Ramalingam, Nancy P Gordon

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Asian adults develop Type 2 diabetes at a lower body mass index (BMI) compared to other racial/ethnic groups. We examined the variation in prevalence of prediabetes and diabetes among Asian ethnic groups within weight strata by comparing middle-aged Chinese, Filipino, South Asian, and White adults receiving care in the same integrated healthcare delivery system.

METHODS: Our retrospective cross-sectional U.S. study examined data from 283,110 (non-Hispanic) White, 33,263 Chinese, 38,766 Filipino, and 17,959 South Asian adults aged 45-64 years who were members of a Northern California health plan in 2016 and had measured height and weight. Prediabetes and diabetes were …

A Comprehensive Update On Cido: The Community-Based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology, Yongqun He, Hong Yu, Anthony Huffman, Asiyah Yu Lin, Darren A Natale, John Beverley, Ling Zheng, Yehoshua Perl, Zhigang Wang, Yingtong Liu, Edison Ong, Yang Wang, Philip Huang, Long Tran, Jinyang Du, Zalan Shah, Easheta Shah, Roshan Desai, Hsin-Hui Huang, Yujia Tian, Eric Merrell, William D Duncan, Sivaram Arabandi, Lynn M Schriml, Jie Zheng, Anna Maria Masci, Liwei Wang, Hongfang Liu, Fatima Zohra Smaili, Robert Hoehndorf, Zoë May Pendlington, Paola Roncaglia, Xianwei Ye, Jiangan Xie, Yi-Wei Tang, Xiaolin Yang, Suyuan Peng, Luxia Zhang, Luonan Chen, Junguk Hur, Gilbert S Omenn, Brian Athey, Barry Smith

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. Accordingly, we initiated the development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO) in early 2020.

RESULTS: As an Open Biomedical Ontology …

Lenalidomide Promotes The Development Of Tp53-Mutated Therapy-Related Myeloid Neoplasms, Adam S Sperling, Veronica A Guerra, James A Kennedy, Yuanqing Yan, Joanne I Hsu, Feng Wang, Andrew T Nguyen, Peter G Miller, Marie E Mcconkey, Vanessa A Quevedo Barrios, Ken Furudate, Linda Zhang, Rashmi Kanagal-Shamanna, Jianhua Zhang, Latasha Little, Curtis Gumbs, Naval Daver, Courtney D Dinardo, Tapan Kadia, Farhad Ravandi, Hagop Kantarjian, Guillermo Garcia-Manero, P Andrew Futreal, Benjamin L Ebert, Koichi Takahashi

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

There is a growing body of evidence that therapy-related myeloid neoplasms (t-MNs) with driver gene mutations arise in the background of clonal hematopoiesis (CH) under the positive selective pressure of chemo- and radiation therapies. Uncovering the exposure relationships that provide selective advantage to specific CH mutations is critical to understanding the pathogenesis and etiology of t-MNs. In a systematic analysis of 416 patients with t-MN and detailed prior exposure history, we found that TP53 mutations were significantly associated with prior treatment with thalidomide analogs, specifically lenalidomide. We demonstrated experimentally that lenalidomide treatment provides a selective advantage to Trp53-mutant hematopoietic stem …

Detection Of Fibular Rotational Changes In Cone Beam Ct: Experimental Study In A Specimen Model, Nils Beisemann, Antonella M Tilk, Jula Gierse, Paul A Grützner, Jochen Franke, Jeffrey H Siewerdsen, Sven Y Vetter

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: In syndesmotic injuries, incorrect reduction leads to early arthrosis of the ankle joint. Being able to analyze the reduction result is therefore crucial for obtaining an anatomical reduction. Several studies that assess fibular rotation in the incisura have already been published. The aim of the study was to validate measurement methods that use cone beam computed tomography imaging to detect rotational malpositions of the fibula in a standardized specimen model.

METHODS: An artificial Maisonneuve injury was created on 16 pairs of fresh-frozen lower legs. Using a stable instrument, rotational malpositions of 5, 10, and 15° internal and external rotation …

Therapeutic Efficacy Of The Humanized Jaa-F11 Anti-Thomsen-Friedenreich Antibody Constructs H2al2a And H3l3 In Human Breast And Lung Cancer Xenograft Models, Diala Ghazal, Fatma Zalzala, John C Fisk, Swetha Tati, Loukia G Karacosta, Susan Morey, James R Olson, Sally Quataert, Grace K Dy, Kate Rittenhouse-Olson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The Thomsen-Friedenreich antigen (TF-Ag-α) is found on ~85% of human carcinomas but is cryptic on normal tissue. The humanized highly specific hJAA-F11-H2aL2a and -H3L3 antibodies target TF-Ag-α without binding to TF-Ag-beta (found on surface glycolipids of some normal cells). The relative affinity of H3L3 is 17 times that of H2aL2a, which would seem to favor superior efficacy, however, increased affinity can result in less tumor penetration. To assess the potential therapeutic efficacy of these antibodies, four human cancer- mouse xenograft models were treated with H2aL2a and H3L3. The tumor xenograft models used were human non-small cell lung cancer, H520, and …

Daphnia As A Sentinel Species For Environmental Health Protection: A Perspective On Biomonitoring And Bioremediation Of Chemical Pollution, Muhammad Abdullahi, Xiaojing Li, Mohamed Abou-Elwafa Abdallah, William Stubbings, Norman Yan, Marianne Barnard, Liang-Hong Guo, John K Colbourne, Luisa Orsini

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Despite available technology and the knowledge that chemical pollution damages human and ecosystem health, chemical pollution remains rampant, ineffectively monitored, rarely prevented, and only occasionally mitigated. We present a framework that helps address current major challenges in the monitoring and assessment of chemical pollution by broadening the use of the sentinel species Daphnia as a diagnostic agent of water pollution. And where prevention has failed, we propose the application of Daphnia as a bioremediation agent to help reduce hazards from chemical mixtures in the environment. By applying “omics” technologies to Daphnia exposed to real-world ambient chemical mixtures, we show improvements …

Scgwas: Landscape Of Trait-Cell Type Associations By Integrating Single-Cell Transcriptomics-Wide And Genome-Wide Association Studies, Peilin Jia, Ruifeng Hu, Fangfang Yan, Yulin Dai, Zhongming Zhao

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: The rapid accumulation of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data presents unique opportunities to decode the genetically mediated cell-type specificity in complex diseases. Here, we develop a new method, scGWAS, which effectively leverages scRNA-seq data to achieve two goals: (1) to infer the cell types in which the disease-associated genes manifest and (2) to construct cellular modules which imply disease-specific activation of different processes.

RESULTS: scGWAS only utilizes the average gene expression for each cell type followed by virtual search processes to construct the null distributions of module scores, making it scalable to large scRNA-seq datasets. We demonstrated scGWAS in …

The Mechanisms Of Action Of Tumor Treating Fields, Justin C Moser, Ellaine Salvador, Karina Deniz, Kenneth Swanson, Jack Tuszynski, Kristen W Carlson, Narasimha Kumar Karanam, Chirag B Patel, Michael Story, Emil Lou, Carsten Hagemann

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Tumor treating fields (TTFields), a new modality of cancer treatment, are electric fields transmitted transdermally to tumors. The FDA has approved TTFields for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme and mesothelioma, and they are currently under study in many other cancer types. While antimitotic effects were the first recognized biological anticancer activity of TTFields, data have shown that tumor treating fields achieve their anticancer effects through multiple mechanisms of action. TTFields therefore have the ability to be useful for many cancer types in combination with many different treatment modalities. Here, we review the current understanding of TTFields and their mechanisms of …

Tumor Microenvironment: Barrier Or Opportunity Towards Effective Cancer Therapy, Aadhya Tiwari, Rakesh Trivedi, Shiaw-Yih Lin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Tumor microenvironment (TME) is a specialized ecosystem of host components, designed by tumor cells for successful development and metastasis of tumor. With the advent of 3D culture and advanced bioinformatic methodologies, it is now possible to study TME's individual components and their interplay at higher resolution. Deeper understanding of the immune cell's diversity, stromal constituents, repertoire profiling, neoantigen prediction of TMEs has provided the opportunity to explore the spatial and temporal regulation of immune therapeutic interventions. The variation of TME composition among patients plays an important role in determining responders and non-responders towards cancer immunotherapy. Therefore, there could be a …

Federated Learning Algorithms For Generalized Mixed-Effects Model (Glmm) On Horizontally Partitioned Data From Distributed Sources, Wentao Li, Jiayi Tong, Md Monowar Anjum, Noman Mohammed, Yong Chen, Xiaoqian Jiang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVES: This paper developed federated solutions based on two approximation algorithms to achieve federated generalized linear mixed effect models (GLMM). The paper also proposed a solution for numerical errors and singularity issues. And showed the two proposed methods can perform well in revealing the significance of parameter in distributed datasets, comparing to a centralized GLMM algorithm from R package ('lme4') as the baseline model.

METHODS: The log-likelihood function of GLMM is approximated by two numerical methods (Laplace approximation and Gaussian Hermite approximation, abbreviated as LA and GH), which supports federated decomposition of GLMM to bring computation to data. To solve …

Combined Trip13 And Aurora Kinase Inhibition Induces Apoptosis In Human Papillomavirus-Driven Cancers, Soma Ghosh, Tuhina Mazumdar, Wei Xu, Reid T Powell, Clifford Stephan, Li Shen, Pooja A Shah, Curtis R Pickering, Jeffery N Myers, Jing Wang, Mitchell J Frederick, Faye M Johnson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: Human papillomavirus (HPV) causes >5% of cancers, but no therapies uniquely target HPV-driven cancers.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: We tested the cytotoxic effect of 864 drugs in 16 HPV-positive and 17 HPV-negative human squamous cancer cell lines. We confirmed apoptosis in vitro and in vivo using patient-derived xenografts. Mitotic pathway components were manipulated with drugs, knockdown, and overexpression.

RESULTS: Aurora kinase inhibitors were more effective in vitro and in vivo in HPV-positive than in HPV-negative models. We hypothesized that the mechanism of sensitivity involves retinoblastoma (Rb) expression because the viral oncoprotein E7 leads to Rb protein degradation, and basal Rb protein …

2022 Practice Recommendation Updates From The World Consensus Conference On Bia-Alcl, Fabio Santanelli Di Pompeo, Mark W Clemens, Michael Atlan, Giovanni Botti, Peter G Cordeiro, Daphne De Jong, Arianna Di Napoli, Dennis Hammond, Cara L Haymaker, Steven M Horwitz, Kelly Hunt, Peter Lennox, Patrick Mallucci, Roberto N Miranda, Alexandre M Munhoz, Eric Swanson, Suzanne D Turner, Guido Firmani, Michail Sorotos

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Laboratory and clinical research on breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL) is rapidly evolving. Changes in standard of care and insights into best practice were recently presented at the 3rd World Consensus Conference on BIA-ALCL.

OBJECTIVES: The authors sought to provide practice recommendations from a consensus of experts, supplemented with a literature review regarding epidemiology, etiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, socio-psychological aspects, and international authority guidance.

METHODS: A literature search of all manuscripts between 1997 and August 2021 for the above areas of BIA-ALCL was conducted with the PubMed database. Manuscripts in different languages, on non-human subjects, and/or discussing …

Neoadjuvant Toripalimab Combined With Gemcitabine And Cisplatin In Resectable Locally Advanced Head And Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (Neotgp01): An Open Label, Single-Arm, Phase Ib Clinical Trial, Xiaotao Huang, Qiaodan Liu, Guihua Zhong, Yingpeng Peng, Ye Liu, Lizhong Liang, Haiyu Hong, Weineng Feng, Shuang Yang, Yaqin Zhang, Shiping Xian, Zhanyu Li, Yuling Zhou, Zhaoyuan Zhang, Wen Jiang, Jun Liang, Zhi-Gang Liu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Neoadjuvant programmed death receptor-1 (PD-1) inhibitors have drawn increasing attention in locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). In this study, we investigated the safety and efficacy of gemcitabine and cisplatin (GP), combined with a PD-1 inhibitor, in patients with locally advanced HNSCC.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 23 eligible patients were administered two cycles of toripalimab and GP followed by surgical resection. The primary endpoints were safety, treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs), and non-operation delay rates. The secondary endpoints consisted of pathological complete response (pCR) rate, major pathological response (MPR) rate, objective response rate (ORR), and …

Evolution And Modulation Of Antigen-Specific T Cell Responses In Melanoma Patients, Jani Huuhtanen, Liang Chen, Emmi Jokinen, Henna Kasanen, Tapio Lönnberg, Anna Kreutzman, Katriina Peltola, Micaela Hernberg, Chunlin Wang, Cassian Yee, Harri Lähdesmäki, Mark M Davis, Satu Mustjoki

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Analyzing antigen-specific T cell responses at scale has been challenging. Here, we analyze three types of T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire data (antigen-specific TCRs, TCR-repertoire, and single-cell RNA + TCRαβ-sequencing data) from 515 patients with primary or metastatic melanoma and compare it to 783 healthy controls. Although melanoma-associated antigen (MAA) -specific TCRs are restricted to individuals, they share sequence similarities that allow us to build classifiers for predicting anti-MAA T cells. The frequency of anti-MAA T cells distinguishes melanoma patients from healthy and predicts metastatic recurrence from primary melanoma. Anti-MAA T cells have stem-like properties and frequent interactions with regulatory …

Critical Role Of Lncepat In Coupling Dysregulated Egfr Pathway And Histone H2a Deubiquitination During Glioblastoma Tumorigenesis, Linlin Li, Aidong Zhou, Yanjun Wei, Feng Liu, Peng Li, Runping Fang, Li Ma, Sicong Zhang, Longqiang Wang, Jinze Liu, Hope T Richard, Yiwen Chen, Hengbin Wang, Suyun Huang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Histone 2A (H2A) monoubiquitination is a fundamental epigenetics mechanism of gene expression, which plays a critical role in regulating cell fate. However, it is unknown if H2A ubiquitination is involved in EGFR-driven tumorigenesis. In the current study, we have characterized a previously unidentified oncogenic lncRNA (lncEPAT) that mediates the integration of the dysregulated EGFR pathway with H2A deubiquitination in tumorigenesis. LncEPAT was induced by the EGFR pathway, and high-level lncEPAT expression positively correlated with the glioma grade and predicted poor survival of glioma patients. Mass spectrometry analyses revealed that lncEPAT specifically interacted with deubiquitinase USP16. LncEPAT inhibited USP16's recruitment to …

Feasibility Of A Novel Non-Invasive Swab Technique For Serial Whole-Exome Sequencing Of Cervical Tumors During Chemoradiation Therapy, Julianna K Bronk, Chiraag Kapadia, Xiaogang Wu, Bhavana V Chapman, Rui Wang, Tatiana V Karpinets, Xingzhi Song, Andrew M Futreal, Jianhua Zhang, Ann H Klopp, Lauren E Colbert

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Clinically relevant genetic predictors of radiation response for cervical cancer are understudied due to the morbidity of repeat invasive biopsies required to obtain genetic material. Thus, we aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of a novel noninvasive cervical swab technique to (1) collect tumor DNA with adequate throughput to (2) perform whole-exome sequencing (WES) at serial time points over the course of chemoradiation therapy (CRT).

METHODS: Cervical cancer tumor samples from patients undergoing chemoradiation were collected at baseline, at week 1, week 3, and at the completion of CRT (week 5) using a noninvasive swab-based biopsy technique. Swab samples were …

Single-Cell Sequencing Reveals Trajectory Of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte States In Pancreatic Cancer, Aislyn Schalck, Donastas Sakellariou-Thompson, Marie-Andrée Forget, Emi Sei, Tara G Hughes, Alexandre Reuben, Shanshan Bai, Min Hu, Tapsi Kumar, Mark W Hurd, Matthew H G Katz, Ching-Wei D Tzeng, Shubham Pant, Milind Javle, David R Fogelman, Anirban Maitra, Cara L Haymaker, Michael P Kim, Nicholas E Navin, Chantale Bernatchez

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has few effective treatments. Immunotherapy, an attractive alternative strategy, remains challenging with the lack of knowledge on the tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) landscape in PDAC. To generate a reference of T-cell subpopulations, we profiled 80,000 T cells from 57 PDAC samples, 22 uninvolved/normal samples, and cultured TIL using single-cell transcriptomic and T-cell receptor analysis. These data revealed 20 cell states and heterogeneous distributions of TIL populations. The CD8+ TIL contained a putative transitional GZMK+ population based on T-cell receptor clonotype sharing, and cell-state trajectory analysis showed similarity to a GZMB+PRF1+ cytotoxic and a CXCL13+ dysfunctional population. Statistical …

The Boring Schwann Cells: Tumor Me-Tast-Asis Along Nerves, Moran Amit, Anirban Maitra

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Perineural spread is an ominous feature of cancer. Here, Deborde and colleagues describe for the first time the biophysical coupling driving this route of tumor spread and the role of Schwann cell activation in the mobilization of cancer cells within and along the tumor-associated nerves. See related article by Deborde et al., p. 2454 (8).

Single-Cell Transcriptomic Profiling Reveals The Tumor Heterogeneity Of Small-Cell Lung Cancer, Yanhua Tian, Qingqing Li, Zhenlin Yang, Shu Zhang, Jiachen Xu, Zhijie Wang, Hua Bai, Jianchun Duan, Bo Zheng, Wen Li, Yueli Cui, Xin Wang, Rui Wan, Kailun Fei, Jia Zhong, Shugeng Gao, Jie He, Carl M Gay, Jianjun Zhang, Jie Wang, Fuchou Tang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is the most aggressive and lethal subtype of lung cancer, for which, better understandings of its biology are urgently needed. Single-cell sequencing technologies provide an opportunity to profile individual cells within the tumor microenvironment (TME) and investigate their roles in tumorigenic processes. Here, we performed high-precision single-cell transcriptomic analysis of ~5000 individual cells from primary tumors (PTs) and matched normal adjacent tissues (NATs) from 11 SCLC patients, including one patient with both PT and relapsed tumor (RT). The comparison revealed an immunosuppressive landscape of human SCLC. Malignant cells in SCLC tumors exhibited diverse states mainly related …

Distinct Immune Signature Predicts Progression Of Vestibular Schwannoma And Unveils A Possible Viral Etiology, Moran Amit, Tongxin Xie, Frederico O Gleber-Netto, Patrick J Hunt, Gautam U Mehta, Diana Bell, Deborah A Silverman, Ismail Yaman, Yi Ye, Jared K Burks, Gregory N Fuller, Paul W Gidley, Marc-Elie Nader, Shaan M Raza, Franco Demonte

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: The management of sub-totally resected sporadic vestibular schwannoma (VS) may include observation, re-resection or irradiation. Identifying the optimal choice can be difficult due to the disease's variable progression rate. We aimed to define an immune signature and associated transcriptomic fingerprint characteristic of rapidly-progressing VS to elucidate the underpinnings of rapidly progressing VS and identify a prognostic model for determining rate of progression.

METHODS: We used multiplex immunofluorescence to characterize the immune microenvironment in 17 patients with sporadic VS treated with subtotal surgical resection alone. Transcriptomic analysis revealed differentially-expressed genes and dysregulated pathways when comparing rapidly-progressing VS to slowly or …

Biophysics Of Cancer, Alemayehu A Gorfe

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Association Of Prediagnosis Obesity And Postdiagnosis Aspirin With Survival From Stage Iv Colorectal Cancer, Jennifer S Davis, Janelle C Chavez, Melissa Kok, Yazmin San Miguel, Hwa Young Lee, Henry Henderson, Michael J Overman, Van Morris, Bryan Kee, David Fogelman, Shailesh M Advani, Benny Johnson, Christine Parseghian, John Paul Shen, Arvind Dasari, Kenna R Shaw, Eduardo Vilar, Kanwal P Raghav, Imad Shureiqi, Robert A Wolff, Funda Meric-Bernstam, Dipen Maru, David G Menter, Scott Kopetz, Shine Chang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

IMPORTANCE: The potential relationship between obesity and colorectal cancer (CRC) outcome is poorly understood in patients with late-stage disease. Increased body mass index may negate aspirin use for cancer prevention, but its role as a factor on the effectiveness of postdiagnosis aspirin use is unclear.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate how prediagnosis obesity and postdiagnosis aspirin use may be associated with overall survival in patients with late-stage colorectal cancer.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cross-sectional study used self-reported data from patients with metastatic or treatment-refractory disease who consented to a clinical protocol at MD Anderson Cancer Center, a large US cancer treatment …

Family Planning, Fertility, And Career Decisions Among Female Oncologists, Anna Lee, Aleksandra Kuczmarska-Haas, Shraddha M Dalwadi, Erin F Gillespie, Michelle S Ludwig, Emma B Holliday, Fumiko Chino

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Importance: Female oncologists often spend their childbearing years in training and establishing careers, with many later experiencing fertility issues when starting a family. Physician fertility and family planning are rarely discussed during training. Attitudes among female oncologists regarding family planning are unknown.

Objectives: To understand barriers to family planning as well as the association of fertility treatment with career decisions and to assess experiences of pregnancy-based discrimination among female oncologists.

Design, setting, and participants: In this survey study, a novel 39-item questionnaire was distributed to US female oncologists from May 7 to June 30, 2020, via email and social media …

Brain Metastases: A Society For Neuro-Oncology (Sno) Consensus Review On Current Management And Future Directions, Ayal A Aizer, Nayan Lamba, Manmeet S Ahluwalia, Kenneth Aldape, Adrienne Boire, Priscilla K Brastianos, Paul D Brown, D Ross Camidge, Veronica L Chiang, Michael A Davies, Leland S Hu, Raymond Y Huang, Timothy Kaufmann, Priya Kumthekar, Keng Lam, Eudocia Q Lee, Nancy U Lin, Minesh Mehta, Michael Parsons, David A Reardon, Jason Sheehan, Riccardo Soffietti, Hussein Tawbi, Michael Weller, Patrick Y Wen

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Brain metastases occur commonly in patients with advanced solid malignancies. Yet, less is known about brain metastases than cancer-related entities of similar incidence. Advances in oncologic care have heightened the importance of intracranial management. Here, in this consensus review supported by the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO), we review the landscape of brain metastases with particular attention to management approaches and ongoing efforts with potential to shape future paradigms of care. Each coauthor carried an area of expertise within the field of brain metastases and initially composed, edited, or reviewed their specific subsection of interest. After each subsection was accordingly written, …

Classification Of High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer Using Tumor Morphologic Characteristics, Katelyn F Handley, Travis T Sims, Nicholas W Bateman, Deanna Glassman, Katherine I Foster, Sanghoon Lee, Jun Yao, Hui Yao, Bryan M Fellman, Jinsong Liu, Zhen Lu, Kelly A Conrads, Brian L Hood, Waleed Barakat, Li Zhao, Jianhua Zhang, Shannon N Westin, Joseph Celestino, Kelly M Rangel, Sunil Badal, Igor Pereira, Prahlad T Ram, George L Maxwell, Livia S Eberlin, P Andrew Futreal, Robert C Bast, Nicole D Fleming, Thomas P Conrads, Anil K Sood

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

IMPORTANCE: Despite similar histologic appearance among high-grade serous ovarian cancers (HGSOCs), clinical observations suggest vast differences in gross appearance. There is currently no systematic framework by which to classify HGSOCs according to their gross morphologic characteristics.

OBJECTIVE: To develop and characterize a gross morphologic classification system for HGSOC.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cohort study included patients with suspected advanced-stage ovarian cancer who presented between April 1, 2013, and August 5, 2016, to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, a large referral center. Patients underwent laparoscopic assessment of disease burden before treatment and received a histopathologic diagnosis of …

Perspectives Of Zambian Clinical Oncology Trainees In The Md Anderson And Zambia Virtual Clinical Research Training Program (Mozart), Kevin Diao, Darya A Kizub, Noveen Ausat, Catherine K Mwaba, Chidinma P Anakwenze Akinfenwa, Carrie A Cameron, Elizabeth Y Chiao, Dorothy C Lombe, Susan C Msadabwe, Lilie L Lin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: African countries are underrepresented in cancer research, partly because of a lack of structured curricula on clinical research during medical education. To address this need, the MD Anderson and Zambia Virtual Clinical Research Training Program (MOZART) was developed jointly by MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDA) and the Cancer Diseases Hospital in Zambia (CDH) for Zambian clinical oncology trainees. We explored participant perspectives to provide insight for implementation of similar efforts.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The MD Anderson and Zambia Virtual Clinical Research Training Program consisted of weekly virtual lectures and support of Zambian-led research protocols through longitudinal mentorship groups that …

Development Of The Invasive Candidiasis Discharge [I Can Discharge] Model: A Mixed Methods Analysis, Jinhee Jo, Truc T Tran, Nicholas D Beyda, Debora Simmons, Joshua A Hendrickson, Masaad Saeed Almutairi, Faris S Alnezary, Anne J Gonzales-Luna, Edward J Septimus, Kevin W Garey

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Patients with invasive candidiasis (IC) have complex medical and infectious disease problems that often require continued care after discharge. This study aimed to assess echinocandin use at hospital discharge and develop a transition of care (TOC) model to facilitate discharge for patients with IC. This was a mixed method study design that used epidemiologic assessment to better understand echinocandin use at hospital discharge TOC. Using grounded theory methodology focused on patients given echinocandins during their last day of hospitalization, a TOC model for patients with IC, the invasive candidiasis [I Can] discharge model was developed to better understand discharge barriers. …