1,720,969 research outputs found
Sertoli cell tumor: a rare case in an elderly patient
No full textEur J Gynaecol Oncol. 2006;27(1):86-7.
Sertoli cell tumor: a rare case in an elderly patient.
Nicoletto MO, Caltarossa E, Donach M, Nardelli GB, Parenti A, Ambrosini A.
SourceDepartment of Medical Oncology, Padua Hospital, Padova, Italy.
Abstract
Sertoli-Leydig cell tumors constitute < 1% of ovarian tumors, mostly in young women with virilization; however, not all present endocrine manifestations. A 72-year-old female presented with an abdominal mass and no signs of virilization. Total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, omentectomy and selective pelvic lymphadenectomy was performed. The pathologic diagnosis was poorly-differentiated sex cord-stromal tumor with Sertoli cells. No adjuvant chemotherapy or radiation was administered. At 12-month follow-up the patient showed no evidence of disease
Metformin: a modulator of bevacizumab activity in cancer? A case report.
Full text linkRecurrent type I endometrial cancer ((EC)) has poor prognosis and demands novel therapeutic approaches. Bevacizumab, a VEGF-A neutralizing monoclonal antibody, has shown clinical activity in this setting. To our knowledge, however, although some diabetic cancer patients treated with bevacizumab may also take metformin, whether metformin modulates response to anti-VEGF therapy has not yet been investigated. Here, we report the case of a patient with advanced (EC) treated, among other drugs, with bevacizumab in combination with metformin. The patient affected by relapsed (EC) G3 type 1, presented in march 2010 with liver, lungs and mediastinic metastases. After six cycles of paclitaxel and cisplatin she underwent partial response. Later on, she had disease progression notwithstanding administration of multiple lines of chemotherapy. In march 2013, due to brain metastases with coma, she began steroid therapy with development of secondary diabetes. At this time, administration of Bevacizumab plus Metformin improved her performance status. CT scans performed in this time window showed reduced radiologic density of the lung and mediastinic lesions and of liver disease, suggestive of increased tumor necrosis. Strong F-18-FDG uptake by PET imaging along with high levels of monocarboxylate transporter 4 and lack of liver kinase B1 expression in liver metastasis, highlighted metabolic features previously associated with response to anti-VEGF therapy and phenformin in preclinical models. However, clinical benefit was transitory and was followed by rapid and fatal disease progression. These findingsalbeit limited to a single casesuggest that tumors lacking LKB1 expression and/or endowed with an highly glycolytic phenotype might develop large necrotic areas following combined treatment with metformin plus bevacizumab. As metformin is widely used among diabetes patients as well as in ongoing clinical trials in cancer patients, these results deserve further clinical investigation
Diagnostic and prognostic evaluation of fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography and its correlation with serum cancer antigen-125 (CA125) in a large cohort of ovarian cancer patients
Full text linkObjective: We evaluated the efficacy of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in recurrent disease, response to therapy, and long-term follow-up of ovarian cancer (OC) patients in relation to cancer antigen-125 (CA125) levels and the prognostic meaning of this modality in this subset of subjects. Material and Methods: Between 2005 and 2015, we retrospectively evaluated 125 patients affected by OC who underwent FDG PET/CT imaging at our institution. The indications for PET/CT were recurrence of disease in 78 patients, therapy response assessment in 29, and follow-up in 18. The results of FDG PET/CT were compared with those of histopathology and clinical and radiological progression during follow-up for at least 6 months. The median long-term follow-up was 33 months. The diagnostic accuracies for the different clinical settings were evaluated. The relationships among global survival (GS), FDG PET/CT results, and CA125 levels were evaluated..
Combined use of urinary UGP and serum CA 125 in the diagnosis of gynecological cancers.
No full textUGP, the beta-core fragment of human chorionic gonadotropin has been proposed as a tumor marker for gynecological malignancies. This fragment may be detected in a single morning-specimen of urine using an enzyme immunoassay. In this study, the diagnostic usefulness of urine UGP and serum CA 125 measurement for gynecological neoplasias (149 cases) was evaluated using a control group of patients with benign gynecological diseases (69 cases) and healthy females (99 cases). Considering the neoplastic patients in comparison to patients with benign diseases, the best diagnostic efficiency (78%) was found to correspond to a cut-off level of 120 pmol/mol creatinine the sensitivity being 73% and the specificity 90%. With this cut-off, an efficiency of 82% for healthy controls was obtained. Since the menopausal condition increases UGP levels, and though no significant difference for UGP was found between healthy subjects and patients with benign diseases, we decided to consider the reference populations as a single group. Thus, we evaluated the UGP performance on the basis of menopausal status. When a specificity of 95% was fixed, the cut-off values were 120 and 180 pmol/mol creatinine for pre- and postmenopausal women respectively, the sensitivity being 73% and 64%. Finally the combined evaluation of UGP and CA 125 improved their individual clinical efficiency for the diagnosis of ovarian serous cystadenocarcinomas, assuring a sensitivity of 86% and a specificity of 89%
Autophagy inhibition reduces chemoresistance and tumorigenic potential of human ovarian cancer stem cells
No full textEpithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is one of the most malignant gynecological tumors with a high mortality rate owing to tumor relapse after anticancer therapies. It is widely accepted that a rare tumor cell population, known as cancer stem cells (CSC), is responsible for tumor progression and relapse; intriguingly, these cells are able to survive nutrient starvation (such as in vitro culture in the absence of glucose) and chemotherapy treatment. Recent data also indicated that chemotherapy resistance is associated with autophagy activation. We thus decided to investigate both in vitro and in vivo the autophagic activity and the effects of the perturbation of this pathway in CSC isolated from EOC ascitic effusions. Ovarian CSC, identified according to their CD44/CD117 co-expression, presented a higher basal autophagy compared with the non-stem counterpart. Inhibition of this pathway, by in vitro chloroquine treatment or CRISPR/Cas9 ATG5 knockout, impaired canonical CSC properties, such as viability, the ability to form spheroidal structures in vitro, and in vivo tumorigenic potential. In addition, autophagy inhibition showed a synergistic effect with carboplatin administration on both in vitro CSC properties and in vivo tumorigenic activity. On the whole, these results indicate that the autophagy process has a key role in CSC maintenance; inhibition of this pathway in combination with other chemotherapeutic approaches could represent a novel effective strategy to overcome drug resistance and tumor recurrence
Intrapleural paclitaxel for malignant pleural effusion from ovarian and breast cancer: a phase II study with pharmacokinetic analysis.
No full textINTRODUCTION:
Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) is a frequent complication in many types of tumors diminishing the patient's ability to perform activities. Despite various studies on talc treatment, some doubts about its safety and effectiveness remain, so the search for a more ideal intrapleural agent continues. We analyzed the effectiveness and safety of intrapleural paclitaxel in ovarian and breast cancer patients.
PATIENTS AND METHODS:
The primary endpoint was overall response rate (ORR); secondary objectives included time to progression (TTP), overall survival (OS) and safety of intrapleural paclitaxel. Pharmacokinetics of the drug was also analyzed. After drainage of pleural effusion and lung re-expansion, paclitaxel 120 mg/m(2) diluted in normal saline was infused through a preinserted catheter which was immediately closed and reopened 24 h later. Blood and pleural fluid samples were collected 1, 4 and 24 h after the end of paclitaxel instillation. When MPE was less than 200 ml/24 h the catheter was removed. Chest radiographs were performed at the beginning of intrapleural paclitaxel, at 1 and 2 months later or with clinical deterioration.
RESULTS:
We enrolled 18 patients with recurrent MPE: 11 with ovarian cancer and 7 with breast cancer. ORR was 77.8% at 1 month and 88.8%. at 2 months. Median TTP was 5.5 months (CI 95% 0.9-10.1) and median OS was 8.9 months (CI 95% 0.1-17.6). Patients achieving a complete response obtained a statistically significant longer survival than did patients with partial response or progressive disease. Chest pain, fever, and dyspnea were the most frequent side effects. Intrapleural paclitaxel concentrations were very high (mean ± SD = 478 ± 187 mg/l) and declined slowly (mean 24 h reduction ~30%). Detectable but low taxol plasma levels were found in most patients (mean ± SD = 0.045 ± 0.073 mg/l).
CONCLUSION:
Intrapleural paclitaxel is a safe and effective palliative treatment for MPE from breast and ovarian cancers and may be integrated with systemic chemotherapy
Study of liposomal doxorubicin (LD) and oxaloplatin (OX) in pre-treated epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC)
No full textGoing Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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