Cancer
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Estrogen is one of the crucial hormones participating in the proliferation and carcinogenesis of the prostate glands. Genetic polymorphisms in the estrogen metabolism pathway might be involved in the risk of prostate carcinoma development. The authors evaluated the association between genetic polymorphisms in estrogen-related enzymes and receptors and the risk of developing familial prostate carcinoma. ⋯ Genetic polymorphisms of genes in the estrogen metabolism pathway were associated significantly with familial prostate carcinoma risk. Single nucleotide polymorphisms of low-penetrance genes are targets for understanding the genetic susceptibility of familial prostate carcinoma.
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The effect on prognosis of adding imatinib mesylate to the treatment of patients with Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-positive chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) has not been explored fully. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the benefit of adding imatinib to the treatment sequence of patients with early chronic phase Ph-positive CML who received interferon alpha (IFN)-based regimens as frontline therapy. ⋯ The current analysis is the first to indicate the independent, favorable effect of imatinib on the survival of patients with Ph-positive CML.
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Trastuzumab (Herceptin; Genentech, South San Francisco, CA) is a humanized anti-ErbB-2 monoclonal antibody that has demonstrated antitumor function, especially in combination with other chemotherapies such as paclitaxel (Taxol; Bristol Myers-Squibb, Princeton, NJ), in patients with tumors that overexpress ErbB-2. Because the repeated administration of low-dose chemotherapy, such as paclitaxel, endorsed an antiangiogenic effect in vitro, and because trastuzumab was shown to inhibit angiogenesis in tumor xenografts, the authors investigated whether ErbB-2-mediated angiogenic responses would be inhibited more effectively by the combined treatment of paclitaxel plus trastuzumab. ⋯ Combined trastuzumab plus paclitaxel treatment more effectively inhibited ErbB-2-mediated angiogenesis than either treatment alone, which resulted in more pronounced tumoricidal effects. This effect may be mediated via the reduction of phosphorylated Akt.
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The authors measured circulating vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) levels in patients with primary nonsmall cell lung carcinoma and assessed its usefulness as a diagnostic tool for determining lymph node metastasis. ⋯ Circulating VEGF-C levels may provide additional information for distinguishing between the absence and presence of lymph node metastasis in patients with lung carcinoma.
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Older age is a consistent poor prognostic factor in patients with Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-positive chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Whether this is related to an intrinsic worse disease biology or to inadequate drug delivery or excessive treatment-associated toxicity is unknown. The availability of imatinib mesylate, a selective, Bcr-Abl-targeted therapy that is administered orally with minimal side effects, may clarify whether older age would remain an adverse factor (thus, implying a different age-related CML biology). ⋯ With imatinib therapy, older age appears to have lost much of its prognostic relevance. This suggests that the previous poor prognosis observed with older age was related to treatment-associated factors (e.g., toxicity with allogeneic transplantation or with IFN therapy) rather than to an intrinsic, different disease biology of CML in older patients.