Oncology reports
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Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) has a poor prognosis, and conventional imaging modalities do not reflect the prognosis of MPM. In this study, the clinical significance of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography fusion imaging (18F-FDG PET/CT) was evaluated for the differential diagnosis, staging and prognosis in MPM patients. Ninety patients who underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT scanning due to a clinical diagnosis or suspicion of MPM prior to therapy were reviewed. ⋯ Twenty-three MPM patients with high SUVmax, whose prognosis was apparent, showed significantly poorer prognosis in both early and delayed phase (respectively, p=0.03 and p=0.01, t-test). The results showed that 18F-FDG PET/CT at delayed phase is very useful for the diagnosis of pleural diseases, and SUVmax on PET/CT in the delayed phase is a more reliable prognostic factor than that in the early phase. High uptake of 18F-FDG PET/CT may be a predictive factor of prognosis in MPM patients.
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Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a prevalent cancer worldwide. Let-7 family has been shown to function as a tumor suppressor through regulating multiple oncogenic signaling. Recent study reported that combined underexpression of miR-205 and let-7d showed negative correlation with the survival prognosis of head and neck cancer patients. ⋯ Furthermore, down-expression of let-7d significantly activated Twist and Snail expressions and chemo-resistant abilities of OSCC cells. Notably, overexpression of let-7d effectively reversed the EMT phenotype, blocked migratory/invasive abilities, and further increased the chemosensitivity in oral cancer tumor initiating ALDH1+ cells. In sum, these results show that let-7d negatively modulates EMT expression and also plays a role in regulating chemo-resistant ability in oral cancer.
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Integrins αvβ3 and αvβ5 are considered to play an important role in the pathogenesis of breast cancer bone metastases. This study investigates the effects of the αvβ3/αvβ5 integrin-specific inhibitor cilengitide during early metastatic bone colonization. The impact of cilengitide on the migration, invasion and proliferation of MDA-MB-231 human breast carcinoma cells as well as on bone resorption by osteoclasts was investigated in vitro. ⋯ In vivo, the development of bone metastasis in the hind leg of rats was not prevented by adjuvant cilengitide treatment, but cilengitide reduced the volumes of osteolytic lesions and respective soft tissue tumors of developing bone metastases as assessed with VCT and MRI, respectively. DCE-MRI revealed significant changes in the A and kep parameters including decreased relative blood volume and increased vessel permeability after cilengitide treatment indicating vessel remodeling. In conclusion, during early pathogenic processes of bone colonization, cilengitide treatment exerted effects on tumor cells, osteoclasts and vasculature reducing the skeletal lesion size of experimental skeletal metastases.
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Protease-activated receptor 2 (PAR2) is a G-protein-coupled receptor and its activation has been associated with the pathogenetic progress in certain cancers. Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), one member of Toll-like receptors family, is mainly contributed to the innate immune response. However, recent studies have shown that TLR4 is aberrantly expressed in various types of carcinomas and may correlate with tumor progression. ⋯ Whereas the caspase-7 expression was decreased under PAR2 or TLR4 activation. Furthermore, ERK1/2 inhibitor (U0126, at 10 μM) could intervene in all regulating effects of PAR2 or/and TLR4. Collectively, this study demonstrated that both PAR2 and TLR4 activation on SW620 cells can trigger the phosphorylation of ERK1/2, regulate the expression of IL-8, TF and caspase-7, thereby promote the proliferation and migration of cells.
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Hereditary breast cancer accounts for 5-10% of all cases of breast cancer and 10-15% of ovarian cancer and is characterised by dominant inheritance, early onset, the severity of the disease and bilaterality. About 30% of cases with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer have mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Women with a mutation in the BRCA1 gene have a 80-90% lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, and 40-65% chance of developing ovarian cancer. ⋯ Seven probands (35%) found BRCA1/2 sequence variation carriers; no BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations were detected in the remaining 13 probands. Two (15%) patients had BRCA1 mutations and 5 (25%) patients had BRCA2 mutations. In the latter case, BRCA2 delA 9158fs+29stop mutation in exon 22, never previously described and a new sequence variation (T703N) in exon 11 were identified.