Medical Specialties Commons^™

Inhibition Of Cancer Causing Genes Through The Delivery Of Omomyc In Anti-Myc Therapy: A Systematic Review, Angie Mcgraw

University Honors Theses

A systematic review of the available studies on the interference of OmoMyc with Myc's function in cancerous cells is presented. Myc is a transcription factor that regulates cellular processes such as apoptosis, proliferation, and differentiation. However, Myc is often overexpressed in a variety of cancers, resulting in abnormal growth of cancer cells. Although the inhibition of Myc has been highly desired, it remained a challenge due to its undruggable characteristics. Attempts to inhibit Myc have involved the usage of small-molecules, but these attempts have failed, causing adverse effects and incomplete inhibition of Myc. Despite promising preclinical studies of OmoMyc, it …

Correction To: Small Molecule Kras Agonist For Mutant Kras Cancer Therapy., Ke Xu, Dongkyoo Park, Andrew T Magis, Jun Zhang, Wei Zhou, Gabriel L Sica, Suresh S Ramalingam, Walter J Curran, Xingming Deng

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Tfeb Regulates Murine Liver Cell Fate During Development And Regeneration, Nunzia Pastore, Tuong Huynh, Niculin J Herz, Alessia Calcagni', Tiemo J Klisch, Lorenzo Brunetti, Kangho Ho Kim, Marco De Giorgi, Ayrea Hurley, Annamaria Carissimo, Margherita Mutarelli, Niya Aleksieva, Luca D'Orsi, William R Lagor, David D Moore, Carmine Settembre, Milton J Finegold, Stuart J Forbes, Andrea Ballabio

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

It is well established that pluripotent stem cells in fetal and postnatal liver (LPCs) can differentiate into both hepatocytes and cholangiocytes. However, the signaling pathways implicated in the differentiation of LPCs are still incompletely understood. Transcription Factor EB (TFEB), a master regulator of lysosomal biogenesis and autophagy, is known to be involved in osteoblast and myeloid differentiation, but its role in lineage commitment in the liver has not been investigated. Here we show that during development and upon regeneration TFEB drives the differentiation status of murine LPCs into the progenitor/cholangiocyte lineage while inhibiting hepatocyte differentiation. Genetic interaction studies show that …

Pancreatic Stromal Gremlin 1 Expression During Pancreatic Tumorigenesis, Joy M. Davis, Binglu Cheng, Madeline M. Drake, Qiang Yu, Baibing Yang, Jing Li, Chunhui Liu, Mamoun Younes, Xiurong Zhao, Jennifer M. Bailey, Qiang Shen, Tien C. Ko, Yanna Cao

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a major risk factor of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). How CP promotes pancreatic oncogenesis remains unclear. A characteristic feature of PDAC is its prominent desmoplasia in the tumor microenvironment, composed of activated fibroblasts and macrophages. Macrophages can be characterized as M1 or M2, with tumor-inhibiting or -promoting functions, respectively. We reported that Gremlin 1 (GREM1), a key pro-fibrogenic factor, is upregulated in the stroma of CP. The current study aimed to investigate the expression of GREM1 and correlation between GREM1 and macrophages within the pancreas during chronic inflammation and the development of PDAC. By mRNA in …

A Mathematical Model To Explore The Potential Of Combinations Of Adt And Immunotherapies, Johnna Barnaby

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Allosteric Inhibitor Of Β-Catenin Selectively Targets Oncogenic Wnt Signaling In Colon Cancer., Anton Cheltsov, Natsuko Nomura, Venkata Mahidhar Yenugonda, Jatin Roper, Rajesh Mukthavaram, Pengfei Jiang, Nam-Gu Her, Ivan Babic, Santosh Kesari, Elmar Nurmemmedov

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Abnormal regulation of β-catenin initiates an oncogenic program that serves as a main driver of many cancers. Albeit challenging, β-catenin is an attractive drug target due to its role in maintenance of cancer stem cells and potential to eliminate cancer relapse. We have identified C2, a novel β-catenin inhibitor, which is a small molecule that binds to a novel allosteric site on the surface of β-catenin. C2 selectively inhibits β-catenin, lowers its cellular load and significantly reduces viability of β-catenin-driven cancer cells. Through direct binding to β-catenin, C2 renders the target inactive that eventually activates proteasome system for its removal. …

Transcriptional Analyses Of Adult And Pediatric Adamantinomatous Craniopharyngioma Reveals Similar Expression Signatures Regarding Potential Therapeutic Targets., Eric Prince, Ros Whelan, Andrew Donson, Susan Staulcup, Astrid Hengartner, Trinka Vijmasi, Chibueze Agwu, Kevin O Lillehei, Nicholas K Foreman, James M Johnston, Luca Massimi, Richard C E Anderson, Mark M Souweidane, Robert P Naftel, David D Limbrick, Gerald Grant, Toba N Niazi, Roy Dudley, Lindsay Kilburn, Eric M Jackson, George I Jallo, Kevin Ginn, Amy Smith, Joshua J Chern, Amy Lee, Annie Drapeau, Mark D Krieger, Michael H Handler, Todd C Hankinson, Advancing Treatment For Pediatric Craniopharyngioma Consortium

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma (ACP) is a biologically benign but clinically aggressive lesion that has a significant impact on quality of life. The incidence of the disease has a bimodal distribution, with peaks occurring in children and older adults. Our group previously published the results of a transcriptome analysis of pediatric ACPs that identified several genes that were consistently overexpressed relative to other pediatric brain tumors and normal tissue. We now present the results of a transcriptome analysis comparing pediatric to adult ACP to identify biological differences between these groups that may provide novel therapeutic insights or support the assertion that potential …

Proteolysis-Targeting Chimera (Protac) For Targeted Protein Degradation And Cancer Therapy, Xin Li, Yongcheng Song

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Proteolysis-targeting chimera (PROTAC) has been developed to be a useful technology for targeted protein degradation. A bifunctional PROTAC molecule consists of a ligand (mostly small-molecule inhibitor) of the protein of interest (POI) and a covalently linked ligand of an E3 ubiquitin ligase (E3). Upon binding to the POI, the PROTAC can recruit E3 for POI ubiquitination, which is subjected to proteasome-mediated degradation. PROTAC complements nucleic acid-based gene knockdown/out technologies for targeted protein reduction and could mimic pharmacological protein inhibition. To date, PROTACs targeting ~ 50 proteins, many of which are clinically validated drug targets, have been successfully developed with several …

Safety And Activity Of Varlilumab, A Novel And First-In-Class Agonist Anti-Cd27 Antibody, For Hematologic Malignancies., Stephen M Ansell, Ian Flinn, Matthew H Taylor, Branimir I Sikic, Joshua Brody, John Nemunaitis, Andrew Feldman, Thomas R Hawthorne, Tracey Rawls, Tibor Keler, Michael J Yellin

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

CD27, a costimulatory molecule on T cells, induces intracellular signals mediating cellular activation, proliferation, effector function, and cell survival on binding to its ligand, CD70. Varlilumab, a novel, first-in-class, agonist immunoglobulin G1 anti-CD27 antibody, mediates antitumor immunity and direct killing of CD27+ tumor cells in animal models. This first-in-human, dose-escalation, and expansion study evaluated varlilumab in patients with hematologic malignancies. Primary objectives were to assess safety and the maximum tolerated and optimal biologic doses of varlilumab. Secondary objectives were to evaluate pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, immunogenicity, and antitumor activity. In a 3 + 3 dose-escalation design, 30 patients with B-cell (n = …

Using Case-Level Context To Classify Cancer Pathology Reports, Shang Gao, Mohammed Alawad, Noah Schaefferkoetter, Lynne Penberthy, Xiao-Cheng Wu, Eric B. Durbin, Linda Coyle, Arvind Ramanathan, Georgia Tourassi

Kentucky Cancer Registry Faculty Publications

Individual electronic health records (EHRs) and clinical reports are often part of a larger sequence-for example, a single patient may generate multiple reports over the trajectory of a disease. In applications such as cancer pathology reports, it is necessary not only to extract information from individual reports, but also to capture aggregate information regarding the entire cancer case based off case-level context from all reports in the sequence. In this paper, we introduce a simple modular add-on for capturing case-level context that is designed to be compatible with most existing deep learning architectures for text classification on individual reports. We …

Increasing Palliative Care Team Involvement In Pediatric Oncology Patients, Sana Farooki

Research Days

No abstract provided.

Protein-Altering Germline Mutations Implicate Novel Genes Related To Lung Cancer Development., Xuemei Ji, Semanti Mukherjee, Maria Teresa Landi, Yohan Bosse, Philippe Joubert, Dakai Zhu, Ivan Gorlov, Xiangjun Xiao, Younghun Han, Olga Gorlova, Rayjean J Hung, Yonathan Brhane, Robert Carreras-Torres, David C Christiani, Neil Caporaso, Mattias Johansson, Geoffrey Liu, Stig E Bojesen, Loic Le Marchand, Demetrios Albanes, Heike Bickeböller, Melinda C Aldrich, William S Bush, Adonina Tardon, Gad Rennert, Chu Chen, Jinyoung Byun, Konstantin H Dragnev, John K Field, Lambertus Fa Kiemeney, Philip Lazarus, Shan Zienolddiny, Stephen Lam, Matthew B Schabath, Angeline S Andrew, Pier A Bertazzi, Angela C Pesatori, Nancy Diao, Li Su, Lei Song, Ruyang Zhang, Natasha Leighl, Jakob S Johansen, Anders Mellemgaard, Walid Saliba, Christopher Haiman, Lynne Wilkens, Ana Fernandez-Somoano, Guillermo Fernandez-Tardon, Erik H F M Van Der Heijden, Jin Hee Kim, Michael P A Davies, Michael W Marcus, Hans Brunnström, Jonas Manjer, Olle Melander, David C Muller, Kim Overvad, Antonia Trichopoulou, Rosario Tumino, Gary E Goodman, Angela Cox, Fiona Taylor, Penella Woll, Erich Wichmann, Thomas Muley, Angela Risch, Albert Rosenberger, Kjell Grankvist, Mikael Johansson, Frances Shepherd, Ming-Sound Tsao, Susanne M Arnold, Eric B Haura, Ciprian Bolca, Ivana Holcatova, Vladimir Janout, Milica Kontic, Jolanta Lissowska, Anush Mukeria, Simona Ognjanovic, Tadeusz M Orlowski, Ghislaine Scelo, Beata Swiatkowska, David Zaridze, Per Bakke, Vidar Skaug, Lesley M Butler, Kenneth Offit, Preethi Srinivasan, Chaitanya Bandlamudi, Matthew D Hellmann, David B Solit, Mark E Robson, Charles M Rudin, Zsofia K Stadler, Barry S Taylor, Michael F Berger, Richard Houlston, John Mclaughlin, Victoria Stevens, David C Nickle, Ma'en Obeidat, Wim Timens, María Soler Artigas, Sanjay Shete, Hermann Brenner, Stephen Chanock, Paul Brennan, James D Mckay, Christopher I Amos

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Few germline mutations are known to affect lung cancer risk. We performed analyses of rare variants from 39,146 individuals of European ancestry and investigated gene expression levels in 7,773 samples. We find a large-effect association with an ATM L2307F (rs56009889) mutation in adenocarcinoma for discovery (adjusted Odds Ratio = 8.82, P = 1.18 × 10-15) and replication (adjusted OR = 2.93, P = 2.22 × 10-3) that is more pronounced in females (adjusted OR = 6.81 and 3.19 and for discovery and replication). We observe an excess loss of heterozygosity in lung tumors among ATM L2307F allele carriers. L2307F is …

Integrating Geriatric Assessment And Genetic Profiling To Personalize Therapy Selection In Older Adults With Acute Myeloid, Vijaya R. Bhatt

Theses & Dissertations

Integrating geriatric assessment for patient profiling and genetic profiling of leukemic cells represents an innovative approach to personalize therapy selection in older adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). We report results of a pre-planned interim analysis of a pragmatic phase II trial that utilized this strategy to personalize therapy. Patients ≥60 years with a new diagnosis of AML underwent geriatric assessment prior to initiation of treatment. Geriatric assessment of physical function, cognitive function and comorbidity burden were used to determine fitness for chemotherapy. Patients with good or intermediate-risk AML received intensive chemotherapy such as anthracycline and cytarabine (7+3) if determined …

The Effects Of Alpha-Tocopherol And Ascorbic Acid On Metastatic Breast Cancer Cells, Scout Treadwell

Honors Theses

Breast cancer is a multifaceted, complex disease that affects hundreds of thousands of patients every year. Although there has a been a decline in the mortality rate of this disease, it is still vital to investigate and discover new possible treatments. One area of research involves the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cancer cells and the possibility of ROS-induced apoptosis. Antioxidants such as Vitamin C and Vitamin E have been shown to serve as pro-oxidants. Instead of detoxifying the cell from damaging ROS, these compounds can stimulate ROS production, triggering an apoptotic cascade in the cell. In this …

Development Of Fluorescent Hyaluronic Acid Nanoparticles For Intraoperative Tumor Detection, Nicholas E. Wojtynek

Theses & Dissertations

Surgical resection remains to be the primary treatment for the majority of solid tumors, including breast cancer. The complete removal of the primary tumor, local metastases, and metastatic lymph nodes dramatically improve a patient’s treatment outcome and prognosis. Nevertheless, surgeons are limited to tactile and visual cues in distinguishing malignant and healthy tissue. This can result in a positive surgical margin (PSM), which occurs when tumor goes undetected and is left behind in the surgical cavity. PSMs decreases a patient’s prognosis and necessitate additional treatment in the form of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. An emerging imaging modality, known as fluorescence-guided …

The Society For Immunotherapy Of Cancer Perspective On Regulation Of Interleukin-6 Signaling In Covid-19-Related Systemic Inflammatory Response, Fernanda I. Arnaldez, Steven J. O'Day, Charles G. Drake, Bernard A Fox, Bingqing Fu, Walter Urba, Vincenzo Montesarchio, Jeffrey S. Weber, Haiming Wei, Jon M. Wigginton, Paolo Antonio Ascierto

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

The pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has placed an unprecedented burden on healthcare systems around the world. In patients who experience severe disease, acute respiratory distress is often accompanied by a pathological immune reaction, sometimes referred to as ‘cytokine storm’. One hallmark feature of the profound inflammatory state seen in patients with COVID-19 who succumb to pneumonia and hypoxia is marked elevation of serum cytokines, especially interferon gamma, tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin 17 (IL-17), interleukin 8 (IL-8) and interleukin 6 (IL-6). Initial experience from the outbreaks in Italy, China and the USA has anecdotally demonstrated improved outcomes …

How Can We Stop Cancer?, Joseph R. Current

The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

Cancer is a disease that humans have been struggling to combat for centuries. It originates from the accumulation of several mutations over the life of a cell that causes it to evade cell death and multiply rapidly. It can affect any tissue in the body and can spread to other parts of the body through metastasis. Cancer comes in numerous shapes and sizes with different levels of aggression, growth speeds, and health risks. Many treatments for cancer exist today, three of the most popular being surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, which can be used in combinations with other treatments to …

Phenylpyrazalopyrimidines As Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors: Synthesis, Antiproliferative Activity, And Molecular Simulations, Bhupender S. Chhikara, Sajda Ashraf, Saghar Mozaffari, Nicole St. Jeans, Dindyal Mandal, Rakesh Kumar Tiwari, Zaheer Ul-Haq, Keykavous Parang

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

N1-(α,β-Alkene)-substituted phenylpyrazolopyrimidine derivatives with acetyl and functionalized phenyl groups at α- and β-positions, respectively, were synthesized by the reaction of 3-phenylpyrazolopyrimidine (PhPP) with bromoacetone, followed by a chalcone reaction with differently substituted aromatic aldehydes. The Src kinase enzyme assay revealed modest inhibitory activity (half maximal inhibitory concentration, IC₅₀ = 21.7–192.1 µM) by a number of PhPP derivatives. Antiproliferative activity of the compounds was evaluated on human leukemia (CCRF-CEM), human ovarian adenocarcinoma (SK-OV-3), breast carcinoma (MDA-MB-231), and colon adenocarcinoma (HT-29) cells in vitro. 4-Chlorophenyl carbo-enyl substituted 3-phenylpyrazolopyrimidine (10) inhibited the cell proliferation of HT-29 and SK-OV-3 by 90% …

Investigating The Redox Sensitivity Of Mitf Splice Variants, Rachel Berryman

Senior Theses

Within pigment-producing cells known as melanocytes, the transcription factor MITF is intimately involved in regulating genes associated with cell cycle maintenance and melanocyte differentiation. Research, however, has provided conflicting results on the relationship between the expression levels of MITF and melanocyte cell fate. To complicate matters, two splice variants of MITF exist, differing by only 18 base pairs. These variants have been observed at variable levels of expression in melanocyte and melanoma cells, raising the question as to their functional purpose. Building upon previous research by the Leachman/Cassidy lab that identified the redox sensitivity of MITF while additionally establishing a …

Impact Of A Protocol Implementation On Identification And Referral Of Women At-Risk For Hereditary Breast Cancer, Chrysanthemum Davis Lawson

Evidence-Based Practice Project Reports

Breast cancer is the foremost new cancer diagnosis and the second highest cause of cancer death in American women (American Cancer Society, 2019). Hereditary breast cancer is most commonly caused by a mutation within the breast cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA 1 or 2, which increases women’s risk for breast cancer by five to ten-fold the average population (Mayo Clinic, 2019). The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has assigned a Grade B recommendation advising health care providers to use a risk assessment tool, such as the Breast Cancer Genetics Referral Screening Tool (B-RST™), to recognize and provide medical management recommendations for …

Steriotactic Radiosurgery For Vestibular Schwannomas, Ummey Hani, Dr Saqib Kamran Bakhshi, Muhammad Shahzad Shamim

Section of Neurosurgery

The approach to treating vestibular schwannomas ranges from wait-and-scan policies to micro-and radiosurgery. However, in the past few decades, Stereotac tic Radiosurgery (SRS) has emerged as an approved primary treatment option as well. In this review, we have assessed some of the existing literature on the role of SRS in the management of vestibular schwannomas, and to estimate its efficacy in tumour control and conservation of cranial nerve function.

Evaluating Awareness Of Low-Dose Computerized Tomography For Lung Cancer Screening, Roshni Leboutillier, Bansi Savla, Vincent Wu, Zia Khan, Erick Mejia, Leah Tehranchi, My Myers, Khine Min, Jennifer Broyles, Stacy Chase

West Florida Division GME Research Day 2020

In the U.S., excluding melanoma, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths.¹
Cigarette smoking is the number one risk factor and is linked to 80-90% of lung cancer deaths.²
Low-dose Computerized Tomography has been shown to reduce lung cancer deaths by 20% in randomized control trials and observational studies.⁴
The U.S. Preventative Task Force recommends annual screening for lung cancer with low-dose computerized tomography (LDCT) in adults ages 55-80 years of age who:

• Have a 30 pack-year smoking history and
• Currently smoke or
• Have quit within the past 15 years.

Novel Inference Methods For Generalized Linear Models Using Shrinkage Priors And Data Augmentation., Arinjita Bhattacharyya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Generalized linear models have broad applications in biostatistics and sociology. In a regression setup, the main target is to find a relevant set of predictors out of a large collection of covariates. Sparsity is the assumption that only a few of these covariates in a regression setup have a meaningful correlation with an outcome variate of interest. Sparsity is incorporated by regularizing the irrelevant slopes towards zero without changing the relevant predictors and keeping the resulting inferences intact. Frequentist variable selection and sparsity are addressed by popular techniques like Lasso, Elastic Net. Bayesian penalized regression can tackle the curse of …

The Society For Immunotherapy Of Cancer Statement On Best Practices For Multiplex Immunohistochemistry (Ihc) And Immunofluorescence (If) Staining And Validation., Janis M Taube, Guray Akturk, Michael Angelo, Elizabeth L Engle, Sacha Gnjatic, Shirley Greenbaum, Noah F Greenwald, Cyrus V Hedvat, Travis J Hollmann, Jonathan Juco, Edwin R Parra, Marlon C Rebelatto, David L Rimm, Jaime Rodriguez-Canales, Kurt A Schalper, Edward C Stack, Cláudia S Ferreira, Konstanty Korski, Ana Lako, Scott J Rodig, Emanuel Schenck, Keith E Steele, Michael J Surace, Michael T Tetzlaff, Katharina Von Loga, Ignacio I Wistuba, Carlo Bifulco, Society For Immunotherapy Of Cancer (Sitc) Pathology Task Force.

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

OBJECTIVES: The interaction between the immune system and tumor cells is an important feature for the prognosis and treatment of cancer. Multiplex immunohistochemistry (mIHC) and multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) analyses are emerging technologies that can be used to help quantify immune cell subsets, their functional state, and their spatial arrangement within the tumor microenvironment.

METHODS: The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) convened a task force of pathologists and laboratory leaders from academic centers as well as experts from pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies to develop best practice guidelines for the optimization and validation of mIHC/mIF assays across platforms.

RESULTS: Representative outputs …

Effect Of Pembrolizumab Plus Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy On Pathologic Complete Response In Women With Early-Stage Breast Cancer: An Analysis Of The Ongoing Phase 2 Adaptively Randomized I-Spy2 Trial., Rita Nanda, Minetta C Liu, Christina Yau, Rebecca Shatsky, Lajos Pusztai, Anne Wallace, A Jo Chien, Andres Forero-Torres, Erin D Ellis, Heather Han, Amy Clark, Kathy Albain, Judy C Boughey, Nora T Jaskowiak, Anthony Elias, Claudine Isaacs, Kathleen Kemmer, Teresa Helsten, Melanie Majure, Erica Stringer-Reasor, Catherine Parker, Marie C Lee, Tufia Haddad, Ronald N Cohen, Smita Asare, Amy Wilson, Gillian L Hirst, Ruby Singhrao, Katherine Steeg, Adam Asare, Jeffrey B Matthews, Scott Berry, Ashish Sanil, Richard Schwab, W Fraser Symmans, Laura Van 'T Veer, Douglas Yee, Angela Demichele, Nola M Hylton, Michelle Melisko, Jane Perlmutter, Hope S Rugo, Donald A Berry, Laura J Esserman

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Importance: Approximately 25% of patients with early-stage breast cancer who receive (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy experience a recurrence within 5 years. Improvements in therapy are greatly needed.

Objective: To determine if pembrolizumab plus neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in early-stage breast cancer is likely to be successful in a 300-patient, confirmatory randomized phase 3 neoadjuvant clinical trial.

Design, Setting, and Participants: The I-SPY2 study is an ongoing open-label, multicenter, adaptively randomized phase 2 platform trial for high-risk, stage II/III breast cancer, evaluating multiple investigational arms in parallel. Standard NACT serves as the common control arm; investigational agent(s) are added to this backbone. Patients with …

Heterodimeric Il-15 Delays Tumor Growth And Promotes Intratumoral Ctl And Dendritic Cell Accumulation By A Cytokine Network Involving Xcl1, Ifn-Γ, Cxcl9 And Cxcl10., Cristina Bergamaschi, Hrishikesh Pandit, Bethany A Nagy, Dimitris Stellas, Shawn M. Jensen, Jenifer Bear, Maggie Cam, Antonio Valentin, Bernard A Fox, Barbara K Felber, George N Pavlakis

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

BACKGROUND: Interleukin-15 (IL-15) promotes growth and activation of cytotoxic CD8

METHODS: The antitumor activity of hetIL-15 produced from mammalian cells was tested in mouse tumor models (MC38 colon carcinoma and TC-1 epithelial carcinoma). The functional diversity of the immune infiltrate and the cytokine/chemokine network within the tumor was evaluated by flow cytometry, multicolor immunohistochemistry (IHC), gene expression profiling by Nanostring Technologies, and protein analysis by electrochemiluminescence and ELISA assays.

RESULTS: hetIL-15 treatment resulted in delayed primary tumor growth. Increased NK and CD8

CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that hetIL-15 administration enhances T cell entry into tumors, increasing the success rate of …

Enhanced B7-H4 Expression In Gliomas With Low Pd-L1 Expression Identifies Super-Cold Tumors., Di Chen, Gaopeng Li, Chunxia Ji, Qiqi Lu, Ying Qi, Chao Tang, Ji Xiong, Jian Hu, Fatma Betul Aksoy Yasar, Yan Zhang, Dave S B Hoon, Yu Yao, Liangfu Zhou

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

BACKGROUND: Characterizing expression profiles of different immune checkpoint molecules are promising for personalized checkpoint inhibitory immunotherapy. Gliomas have been shown as potential targets for immune checkpoint inhibitors recently. Our study was performed to determine coexpression levels of two major B7 immune regulatory molecules programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and B7-H4, both of which have been demonstrated to inhibit antitumor host immunity in gliomas.

METHODS: We assessed tumor tissues from stage II-IV primary gliomas (n=505) by immunohistochemistry (IHC) for protein levels of both PD-L1 and B7-H4. Gene coexpression analysis assessing clusters based on extent of PD-L1/B7-H4 classifier genes expression were investigated …

Randomized Phase Ii Study Of Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy And Interleukin-2 Versus Interleukin-2 In Patients With Metastatic Melanoma., Brendan Curti, Marka R Crittenden, Steven K Seung, Christopher B Fountain, Roxanne Payne, Shuching Chang, Jessica Fleser, Kimberly Phillips, Ian Malkasian, Lyn B Dobrunick, Walter Urba

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

BACKGROUND: A pilot study of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) followed by high-dose interleukin-2 (IL-2) showed a higher than anticipated objective response rate (ORR) among patients with metastatic melanoma (MM). We performed a prospective randomized study to determine if the ORR of SBRT + IL-2 was greater than IL-2 monotherapy in patients with advanced melanoma.

METHODS: Patients with MM who had adequate physiological reserve for IL-2 and at least one site suitable for SBRT were eligible. There was a 1:1 randomization to SBRT + IL-2 or IL-2 monotherapy. Patients received one or two doses of SBRT (20 Gy per fraction) …

Results Of Lung Cancer Screening In The Community., John R Handy, Michael Skokan, Erika Rauch, Steven Zinck, Rachel E Sanborn, Svetlana Kotova, Mansen Wang

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

PURPOSE: To address doubts regarding National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) generalizability, we analyzed over 6,000 lung cancer screenings (LCSs) within a community health system.

METHODS: Our LCS program included 10 sites, 7 hospitals (2 non-university tertiary care, 5 community) and 3 free-standing imaging centers. Primary care clinicians referred patients. Standard criteria determined eligibility. Dedicated radiologists interpreted all LCSs, assigning Lung Imaging Reporting and Data System (Lung-RADS) categories. All category 4 Lung-RADS scans underwent multidisciplinary review and management recommendations. Data was prospectively collected from November 2013 through December 2018 and retrospectively analyzed.

RESULTS: Of 4,666 referrals, 1,264 individuals were excluded or …

Trends, Survival Outcomes, And Predictors Of Non-Adherence To Mastectomy Guidelines For Non-Metastatic Inflammatory Breast Cancer: Stage-Stratified Propensity Scoring Analysis Of Ncdb, Mohamad Sebai, Patrick Karabon, David Lee, Sayee Kiran, Nayana Dekhne

Articles

Background/Objective: Current National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines recommend modified radical mastectomy (MRM) as the surgical treatment of choice for nonmetastatic inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). Using data from the National Cancer Database (NCDB), our study compared the national trends and outcomes of breast-conserving surgery (BCS) vs. MRM for the treatment of IBC. Methods: NCDB data from 2004 to 2014 were retrospectively analyzed. Patients’ demographics, tumor characteristics, and overall mortality (OM) trends were compared between BCS and MRM cases of IBC. Univariate, multivariate, and propensity score weighted analyses were done to compare study groups and build a predictive model for undergoing …