Publications by authors named "Abed Agbarya"

Article Synopsis
  • Lung cancer is a serious disease with unique challenges, especially in patients diagnosed with resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
  • A study from January 2022 to August 2023 involved 56 patients (mostly smokers and male) who received neoadjuvant chemo-immunotherapy before surgery, with 80% in stage III.
  • Results showed 86% of patients had a positive response to treatment, and 61% had significant pathological improvements, highlighting the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors in treating NSCLC before surgery.
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Article Synopsis
  • A retrospective study assessed the effectiveness of crizotinib versus newer ROS1-targeted therapies in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
  • Among 49 ROS1-expressing patients, those treated with newer agents like entrectinib and repotrectinib had higher response and disease control rates compared to those treated with crizotinib.
  • Despite crizotinib showing comparable results, the newer therapies demonstrated longer median progression-free survival, highlighting the potential benefits of newer treatment options.
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Chemoresistance is a major obstacle in cancer treatment, often leading to disease progression and poor outcomes. It arises through various mechanisms such as genetic mutations, drug efflux pumps, enhanced DNA repair, and changes in the tumor microenvironment. These processes allow cancer cells to survive despite chemotherapy, underscoring the need for new strategies to overcome resistance and improve treatment efficacy.

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The efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy concerning programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) status is well established in patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, there remains a paucity of evidence regarding the efficacy concerning tumor mutational burden (TMB) in both clinical trials and real-world data (RWD). In the current article, clinicopathological and molecular epidemiological data were meticulously collected, and treatment modalities were meticulously recorded.

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Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common pulmonary malignancy, frequently diagnosed at an advanced stage (III/IV). Patients in the Locally Advanced Stage Subgroup (IIIA) are relatively few, yet compose heterogenic phenotypes, posing a diagnostic and treating challenge, leading to a lack of clinical guidelines regarding the optimal standard of care. Several approaches exist, with a general agreement that a combined oncological and surgical modality approach is required.

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Background: Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of disease, disability, and death worldwide. Although physicians have high levels of health literacy with awareness of the consequences of smoking and their essential role in smoking cessation of patients, some physicians continue to smoke. Rates of smoking among Arab male physicians are high.

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Due to the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, a preventive tool in the form of vaccination was introduced. Thoracic cancer patients had one of the highest rates of morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19 disease, but the lack of data about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines in this population triggered studies like ours to explore these parameters in a cancer population. Out of 98 patients with thoracic malignancies vaccinated per protocol, 60-75% experienced some adverse events (AE) after their first or second vaccination, most of them were mild and did not interfere with their daily activities.

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Purpose: Current guidelines for the management of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) without driver mutations recommend checkpoint immunotherapy with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors, either alone or in combination with chemotherapy. This approach fails to account for individual patient variability and host immune factors and often results in less-than-ideal outcomes. To address the limitations of the current guidelines, we developed and subsequently blindly validated a machine learning algorithm using pretreatment plasma proteomic profiles for personalized treatment decisions.

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Ovarian cancer (OC), the second most common form of gynecologic malignancy, has a poor prognosis and is often discovered in the late stages. Platinum-based chemotherapy is the first line of therapy. Nevertheless, treatment OC has proven challenging due to toxicity and the development of acquired resistance to therapy.

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Case studies of rare oncologic metastases are an important source of clinical data for health care professionals and researchers. While infrequent, the knowledge base and clinical recommendations derived from such cases aid in advancements in the field. As such, we aim to add five cases to the growing body of literature.

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The BNT162b2 vaccine is globally used for preventing morbidity and mortality related to COVID-19. Cancer patients have had priority for receiving the vaccine due to their diminished immunity. This study reports the response rate of administering the third and fourth vaccine doses to cancer patients receiving active anti-neoplastic treatment.

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Immune checkpoint inhibitors have become the standard of care in the treatment of metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The combination of nivolumab plus ipilimumab and chemotherapy has been shown to improve outcomes in terms of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). The aim of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of metastatic NSCLC treated in routine practice on the treatment regimen of the CheckMate 9LA protocol.

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BRAF and cMET exon 14 skipping are rare mutations of NSCLC. The treatment sequence in these cases for the first and second line is not clear. An international registry was created for patients with advanced NSCLC harboring BRAF or cMET exon 14 skipping mutations, diagnosed from January 2017 to June 2022.

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Unprecedented challenges in hospital care were imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic due to the highly contagious disease. Healthcare services adjusted for working with additional personal protection equipment and hygiene measures while attending to a large number of critically ill patients. In this study, we aimed to determine burnout rates and preferred interventions among healthcare staff, including nurses and physicians, at Bnai-Zion Medical Center during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Type I gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms (gNENs) are associated with atrophic gastritis and have a high recurrence rate, which means frequent endoscopies are required. The objective of this study was to identify factors predicting the local recurrence of type I gNENs. The clinical course and the pathological and biochemical data of patients with type I gNENs treated at Bnai Zion Medical Center between 2006 and 2022 were analyzed retrospectively.

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Article Synopsis
  • A European registry was established for patients with advanced EGFR exon 20-mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) diagnosed between January 2019 and December 2021, specifically excluding those enrolled in clinical trials.* -
  • The final analysis included data from 175 patients across nine countries, revealing a median age of 64 years, predominantly affecting women (56.3%) and mostly comprising adenocarcinoma cases (95.4%) with frequent bone (47.4%) and brain (32.0%) metastases.* -
  • Treatment patterns varied significantly: chemotherapy and chemotherapy-immunotherapy combinations were used in 33.8% and 18.2% of cases respectively, with disease control rates of
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Background and Objectives: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is one of the most common malignancies of the endocrine system. In order to improve the ability to predict tumor behavior, several studies have been conducted to search for surrogate prognostic immunohistochemical tumor markers. Objective: To evaluate the correlation between the intensity of different immunohistochemical marker staining in PTC and the risk for extrathyroidal extension and metastases.

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Objective: To compare the effectiveness of acupuncture alone or with additional integrative oncology modalities for taxane-induced peripheral neuropathy-related symptoms in patients with gynecological and breast cancer.

Methods: The study was a prospective evaluation of patients undergoing twice-weekly treatments with either acupuncture alone (single-modality, group A) or with additional manual-movement and mind-body therapies (multimodality, group B), for 6 weeks. Symptom severity was assessed at baseline, 6 weeks, and 9 weeks using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Taxane (FACT-Tax) tool; and von Frey perception thresholds.

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Background: Inflammatory skin rash resulting from treatment with epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors may cause physical and mental disabling to patients treated for their oncologic condition and may, in some cases, lead to the cessation of biological treatment.

Case Report: In this case report, acupuncture treatment was provided to a patient with metastatic colorectal carcinoma who developed skin toxicity from panitumumab including rash, itching, and skin inflammation. Itching, infection, and inflammation symptoms improved significantly following acupuncture, subsequently relapsed following treatment cessation, and improved once again following reintroduction of acupuncture.

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Background: To explore the impact of acupuncture with other complementary and integrative medicine (CIM) modalities on chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) and quality of life (QoL) in oncology patients.

Methods: In this prospective, pragmatic, and patient-preference study, patients with CIPN were treated with acupuncture and CIM therapies (intervention group) or standard care alone (controls) for 6 weeks. Patients in the intervention arm were randomized to twice-weekly acupuncture-only (group A) or acupuncture with additional manual-movement or mind-body CIM therapies (group B).

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Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for most lung cancers and is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the USA. Alterations in c-MET, a tyrosine kinase receptor, have been involved in many cases of NSCLC progression and metastasis. Crizotinib and other tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have been used in NSCLC treatment with limited success.

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Background: The use of CGP in guiding treatment decisions in aNSCLC with acquired resistance to ALK TKIs is questionable.

Methods: We prospectively assessed the impact of CGP on the decision-making process in ALK-rearranged aNSCLC patients following progression on 2/3-generation ALK TKIs. Physician's choice of the most recommended next-line systemic treatment (NLST) was captured before and after receival of CGP results; the percentage of cases in which the NLST recommendation has changed was assessed along with the CGP turnaround time (TAT).

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Background: fusions have been reported infrequently in aNSCLC, including as a rare, acquired resistance mechanism following treatment with EGFR TKIs. Data regarding their prevalence and therapeutic implications are limited.

Methods: The Guardant Health (GH) electronic database (ED) was evaluated for cases of aNSCLC and fusions; fusion prevalence with and without a co-existing mutation was assessed.

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