The mFI-5 and Postoperative Outcomes in Brain Tumor Patients: A Bayesian Approach to Quantifying Uncertainty.

Objective: To the best of our knowledge, prior research has not investigated the uncertainty in the relationship between patient frailty and postoperative outcomes after brain tumor surgery. The present study used Bayesian methods to quantify the statistical uncertainty between the 5-factor modified frailty index (mFI-5) and postoperative outcomes for patients undergoing brain tumor resection.

Methods: The present study used retrospective data collected from patients undergoing brain tumor resection during a 2-year period (2017-2019).

CAR T Cell Therapy in Glioblastoma: Overcoming Challenges Related to Antigen Expression.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary brain tumor, yet prognosis remains dismal with current treatment. Immunotherapeutic strategies have had limited effectiveness to date in GBM, but recent advances hold promise. One such immunotherapeutic advance is chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, where autologous T cells are extracted and engineered to express a specific receptor against a GBM antigen and are then infused back into the patient.

Combination anti-CXCR4 and anti-PD-1 immunotherapy provides survival benefit in glioblastoma through immune cell modulation of tumor microenvironment.

Background: Emerging evidence suggests that myeloid cells play a critical role in glioblastoma (GBM) immunosuppression. Disappointing results of recent checkpoint inhibitor trials suggest that combination immunotherapy with alternative agents could be fruitful in overcoming immunosuppression. Overexpression of chemokine receptor CXCR4 is associated with poor prognosis in GBM.

Contrasting impact of corticosteroids on anti-PD-1 immunotherapy efficacy for tumor histologies located within or outside the central nervous system.

Immune checkpoint blockade targeting programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) is emerging as an important treatment strategy in a growing list of cancers, yet its clinical benefits are limited to a subset of patients. Further investigation of tumor-intrinsic predictors of response and how extrinsic factors, such as iatrogenic immunosuppression caused by conventional therapies, impact the efficacy of anti-PD-1 therapy are paramount. Given the widespread use of corticosteroids in cancer management and their immunosuppressive nature, this study sought to determine how corticosteroids influence anti-PD-1 responses and whether their effects were dependent on tumor location within the periphery versus central nervous system (CNS), which may have a more limiting immune environment.

Venous Stenosis and Hemorrhage After Radiosurgery for Cerebral Arteriovenous Malformations.

Background: The risk of hemorrhage remains after radiosurgery for patients with arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), especially during the latency period. The effect of venous outflow stenosis on postradiosurgery AVM hemorrhage has been understudied. The present study sought to clarify the effect of venous stenosis on postradiation hemorrhage.

TIGIT and PD-1 dual checkpoint blockade enhances antitumor immunity and survival in GBM.

The use of inhibitory checkpoint blockade in the management of glioblastoma has been studied in both preclinical and clinical settings. TIGIT is a novel checkpoint inhibitor recently discovered to play a role in cancer immunity. In this study, we sought to determine the effect of anti-PD-1 and anti-TIGIT combination therapy on survival in a murine glioblastoma (GBM) model, and to elucidate the underlying immune mechanisms.

Population-based Study Determining Predictors of Cancer-Specific Mortality and Survival in Pediatric High-grade Brainstem Glioma.

Background: Pediatric high-grade brainstem gliomas are aggressive tumors with dismal prognoses. Large-scale studies are needed to further characterize these tumors and determine factors influencing cancer-specific mortality and survival at varying time points.

Methods: We used the SEER (Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results) database to conduct a population-based study of pediatric patients with histologically confirmed anaplastic astrocytoma or glioblastoma tumors located within the brainstem.

Assessing the Role of Preoperative Embolization in the Surgical Management of Cerebral Arteriovenous Malformations.

Background: Preoperative embolization is established as an advantageous adjunct in multimodality treatment of cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). However, the benefit of preoperative embolization in AVMs with favorable surgical risk profile is debatable, because it has yet to be supported by evidence in comparative studies. In this study, we assessed outcome of surgically treated patients in a comparative setting.

The Potential of Cellular- and Viral-Based Immunotherapies for Malignant Glioma-Dendritic Cell Vaccines, Adoptive Cell Transfer, and Oncolytic Viruses.

Purpose Of Review: Malignant gliomas, including glioblastoma and anaplastic astrocytoma, are the most frequent primary brain tumors and present with many treatment challenges. In this review, we discuss the potential of cellular- and viral-based immunotherapies in the treatment of malignant glioma, specifically focusing on dendritic cell vaccines, adoptive cell therapy, and oncolytic viruses.

Recent Findings: Diverse cellular- and viral-based strategies have been engineered and optimized to generate either a specific or broad antitumor immune response in malignant glioma.

Pediatric spinal cord astrocytomas: a retrospective study of 348 patients from the SEER database.

OBJECTIVE Intramedullary spinal cord tumors comprise 1%-10% of all childhood central nervous system neoplasms, with astrocytomas representing the most common subtype. Due to their rarity and poor prognosis, large population-based studies are needed to assess the epidemiology and survival risk factors associated with these tumors in the hope of improving outcome. The authors undertook this retrospective study to explore factors that may influence survival in pediatric patients with spinal cord astrocytomas.

The Role of Immune Checkpoint Inhibition in the Treatment of Brain Tumors.

The standard of care for malignant gliomas of the brain has changed very little over the last few decades, and does not offer a cure for these rare, but fatal, tumors. The field of immunotherapy has brought potent new drugs into the oncological armamentarium, and is becoming recognized as a potentially important arm in the treatment of glioblastoma for adults. Immune checkpoints are inhibitory receptors found on immune cells that, when stimulated, cause those immune cells to become quiescent.

Postoperative Delayed Paradoxical Depression After Uncomplicated Unruptured Intracranial Aneurysm Surgery.

Background: Postoperative delayed paradoxical depression (PDPD) is a psychiatric condition described in patients without a history of mood disorders who undergo major surgery without complications and become clinically depressed. PDPD has been recognized in major surgical interventions, including coronary artery bypass surgery. We sought to determine the incidence and potential factors associated with PDPD after surgical treatment of unruptured intracranial aneurysms.

Temporal context and the organisational impairment of memory search in schizophrenia.

Introduction: An influential theory of schizophrenic deficits in executive function suggests that patients have difficulty maintaining and utilising an internal contextual representation, whose function is to ensure that stimuli are processed in a task-appropriate manner. In basic research on episodic memory, retrieved-context theories propose that an internal contextual representation is critically involved in memory search, facilitating the retrieval of task-appropriate memories. This contextual machinery is thought to give rise to temporal organisation during free recall: the tendency for successive recall responses to correspond to items from nearby positions on the study list.

Systematic Error in Hippocampal Volume Asymmetry Measurement is Minimal with a Manual Segmentation Protocol.

Hemispheric asymmetry of hippocampal volume is a common finding that has biological relevance, including associations with dementia and cognitive performance. However, a recent study has reported the possibility of systematic error in measurements of hippocampal asymmetry by magnetic resonance volumetry. We manually traced the volumes of the anterior and posterior hippocampus in 40 healthy people to measure systematic error related to image orientation.

Vascular endothelial growth factor is upregulated by L-dopa in the parkinsonian brain: implications for the development of dyskinesia.

Angiogenesis and increased permeability of the blood-brain barrier have been reported to occur in animal models of Parkinson's disease and l-dopa-induced dyskinesia, but the significance of these phenomena has remained unclear. Using a validated rat model of l-dopa-induced dyskinesia, this study demonstrates that chronic treatment with l-dopa dose dependently induces the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor in the basal ganglia nuclei. Vascular endothelial growth factor was abundantly expressed in astrocytes and astrocytic processes in the proximity of blood vessels.

Mitochondrial abnormalities in the putamen in Parkinson's disease dyskinesia.

Prolonged treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD) with levodopa leads to disabling side effects collectively referred to as 'dyskinesias'. We hypothesized that bioenergetic function in the putamen might play a crucial role in the development of dyskinesias. To test this hypothesis, we used post mortem samples of the human putamen and applied real time-PCR approaches and gene expression microarrays.