Oncotarget
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Overall survival (OS) with the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor (ALKi) crizotinib in a large population of unselected patients with ALK-positive non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is not documented. We sought to assess OS with crizotinib in unselected ALK-positive NSCLC patients and whether post-progression systemic treatments affect survival outcomes. ALK-positive NSCLC patients receiving crizotinib in French expanded access programs or as approved drug were enrolled. ⋯ These patients had a median post-PD survival of 25.0 months and median OS from metastatic disease diagnosis of 89.6 months. Unselected ALK-positive NSCLC patients achieve good survival outcomes with crizotinib therapy. Next-generation ALKi may provide survival improvement after PD under crizotinib.
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Suitable diagnostic markers for cancers are urgently required in clinical practice. Long non-coding RNAs, which have been reported in many cancer types, are a potential new class of biomarkers for tumor diagnosis. ⋯ Our results demonstrate that certain lncRNAs, such as AK001058, INHBA-AS1, MIR4435-2HG, and CEBPA-AS1, are enriched in human gastric cancer tissues and significantly elevated in the plasma of patients with gastric cancer. These findings indicate that the combination of these four lncRNAs might be used as diagnostic or prognostic markers for gastric cancer patients.
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Tick-borne infectious diseases and allergies are a growing problem worldwide. Tick bite allergy has been associated with the direct effect of immunoglobulin E (IgE) response to tick salivary antigens, or secondary to the induction of allergy to red meat consumption through IgE antibodies against the carbohydrate α-Gal (Gal α 1-3Gal β 1-(3)4GlcNAc-R). However, despite the growing burden of this pathology, the proteins associated with anaphylaxis to tick bite have not been characterized. ⋯ The results supported a patient-specific IgE antibody response to tick species responsible for the anaphylaxis to tick bite. Both patients and the healthy individual serologically recognized tick proteins with and without α-Gal modifications, with proteins differentially recognized by patients but not control sera. These proteins could be used as potential antigens for diagnostics, treatment and prevention of tick bite-induced allergies.
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Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) management has undergone a major transformation over the past decade; immune checkpoint inhibitors are currently undergoing clinical trials and show promising results. However, the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors in patients with metastatic RCC (mRCC) is still limited. Lycorine, an alkaloid extracted from plants of the Amaryllidaceae family, is touted as a potential anti-cancer drug because of its demonstrative growth inhibition capacity (induction of cell cycle arrest and inhibition of vasculogenic mimicry formation). ⋯ Lycorine hydrochloride and anti-CTLA-4 synergistically decreased tumor weight, lung metastasis, and luciferin-staining in tumor images. Importantly, the observed anti-tumor effects of this combination were dependent on significantly suppressing regulatory T cells while upregulating effector T cells; a decrease in regulatory T cells by 31.43% but an increase in effector T cells by 31.59% were observed in the combination group compared with those in the control group). We suggest that a combination of lycorine hydrochloride and anti-CTLA-4 is a viable therapeutic option for RCC patients.
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Elevated inflammatory markers are associated with poor outcomes in various types of cancers; however, their clinical significance in multiple myeloma (MM) have seldom been explored. This study investigated the prognostic relevance of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR) in MM. Totally 559 MM patients were included in this study. ⋯ Applying cut-offs of 4 (NLR), 100 (PLR) and 0.3 (MLR), elevated NLR, MLR and decreased PLR showed a negative impact on outcome. Importantly, elevated NLR and decreased PLR were independent prognostic factors for progression-free survival. Thus, elevated NLR and MLR, and decreased PLR predict poor clinical outcome in MM patients and may serve as the cost-effective and readily available prognostic biomarkers.