Publications by authors named "Catarina Macedo-Silva"

Background: Early gastric cancer is treated endoscopically, but patients require surveillance due to the risk of metachronous gastric lesions (MGLs). Epigenetic alterations, particularly aberrant DNA methylation in genes, such as MIR124-3, MIR34b/c, NKX6-1, EMX1, MOS and CDO1, have been identified as promising biomarkers for MGL in Asian populations. We aimed to determine whether these changes could predict MGL risk in intermediate-risk Caucasian patients.

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Article Synopsis
  • Accurate diagnosis and risk assessment for prostate cancer (PCa) patients is crucial for ensuring the best treatment outcomes, especially for those with low- and intermediate-risk disease who may opt for active surveillance (AS).
  • A study developed risk calculators based on cancer biomarkers, such as Ki67 and KLF8 levels, to better distinguish which patients might benefit from more proactive interventions.
  • The resulting prognostic model, known as ProstARK, showed promising accuracy in predicting biochemical recurrence-free survival, but further validation in larger studies is needed to confirm its effectiveness for patient selection in AS protocols.
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External beam radiotherapy (RT) is a leading first-line therapy for prostate cancer (PCa), and, in recent years, significant advances have been accomplished. However, RT resistance can arise and result in long-term recurrence or disease progression in the worst-case scenario. Thus, making crucial the discovery of new targets for PCa radiosensitization.

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Gal-3 plays an important role in cell survival, mRNA splicing, and cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions. Depending on its cellular localization and cancer type, Gal-3 may have tumour-suppressive or tumour-promoting activities. Given the promising diagnostic role of Gal-3 in the urine of PCa patients found in our previous study, its concordant gene and protein expression levels, and its involvement in PCa-related biological processes (e.

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Background: Esophageal cancer (ECa) is associated with high mortality, mostly due to late diagnosis, precluding curativeintent surgery. Hence, neoadjuvant chemoradiation (ChRT) is recommended in most patients regardless of histological subtype. A proportion of these patients, however, achieve complete disease remission and might be spared of radical surgery.

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Lung cancer (LC) is a major cause of mortality. Late diagnosis, associated with limitations in tissue biopsies for adequate tumor characterization contribute to limited survival of lung cancer patients. Liquid biopsies have been introduced to improve tumor characetrization through the analysis of biomarkers, including circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and cell-free DNA (cfDNA).

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Prostate cancer (PCa) is a global health problem that affects millions of men every year. In the past decade, metabolomics and related subareas, such as lipidomics, have demonstrated an enormous potential to identify novel mechanisms underlying PCa development and progression, providing a good basis for the development of new and more effective therapies and diagnostics. In this study, a multiplatform metabolomics and lipidomics approach, combining untargeted mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based techniques, was applied to PCa tissues to investigate dysregulations associated with PCa development, in a cohort of 40 patients submitted to radical prostatectomy for PCa.

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Radiotherapy (RT) is one of the mainstay treatments for prostate cancer (PCa), a highly prevalent neoplasm among males worldwide. About 30% of newly diagnosed PCa patients receive RT with a curative intent. However, biochemical relapse occurs in 20-40% of advanced PCa treated with RT either alone or in combination with adjuvant-hormonal therapy.

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Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), the most frequent esophageal cancer (EC) subtype, entails dismal prognosis. Hypoxia, a common feature of advanced ESCC, is involved in resistance to radiotherapy (RT). RT response in hypoxia might be modulated through epigenetic mechanisms, constituting novel targets to improve patient outcome.

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Background: Esophageal cancer (ECa) is the 7th most incident cancer and the 6th leading cause of cancer-related death. Most patients are diagnosed with locally advanced or metastatic disease, enduring poor survival. Biomarkers enabling early cancer detection may improve patient management, treatment effectiveness, and survival, are urgently needed.

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Background: Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) displays a glycolytic phenotype (Warburg effect). Increased lactate production, impacting on tumor biology and microenvironment modulation, has been implicated in epigenetic mechanisms' regulation, leading to histone deacetylases inhibition. Thus, in-depth knowledge of lactate's impact on epigenome regulation of highly glycolytic tumors might allow for new therapeutic strategies.

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Esophageal cancer (EC) is the seventh most common cancer worldwide and the sixth leading cause of death, according to Globocan 2018. Despite efforts made for therapeutic advances, EC remains highly lethal, portending a five-year overall survival of just 15-20%. Hence, the discovery of new molecular targets that might improve therapeutic efficacy is urgently needed.

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