Responses of patients with cancer to mRNA vaccines depend on the time interval between vaccination and last treatment.

Background: Personalized mRNA vaccines are promising new therapeutic options for patients with cancer. Because mRNA vaccines are not yet approved for first-line therapy, the vaccines are presently applied to individuals that received prior therapies that can have immunocompromising effects. There is a need to address how prior treatments impact mRNA vaccine outcomes.

Trabectedin for Patients with Advanced Soft Tissue Sarcoma: A Non-Interventional, Prospective, Multicenter, Phase IV Trial.

This non-interventional, prospective phase IV trial evaluated trabectedin in patients with soft tissue sarcoma (STS) in real-life clinical practice across Germany. The primary endpoints were progression-free survival (PFS) rates at 3 and 6 months, as defined by investigators. Overall, 128 patients from 19 German sites were evaluated for efficacy and 130 for safety.

Automated Assessment of Breast Positioning Quality in Screening Mammography.

Screening mammography is a widely used approach for early breast cancer detection, effectively increasing the survival rate of affected patients. According to the Food and Drug Administration's Mammography Quality Standards Act and Program statistics, approximately 39 million mammography procedures are performed in the United States each year. Therefore, breast cancer screening is among the most common radiological tasks.

A new promising oncogenic target (p.C382R) for treatment with pemigatinib in patients with cholangiocarcinoma.

Point mutations of the fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR)2 receptor in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCC) are mainly of unknown functional significance compared to FGFR2 fusions. Pemigatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, is approved for the treatment of cholangiocarcinoma with FGFR2 fusion/rearrangement. Although it is hypothesized that FGFR2 mutations may cause uncontrolled activation of the signaling pathway, the data for targeted therapies for FGFR2 mutations remain unclear.

Implementation of CDK4/6 Inhibitors and its Influence on the Treatment Landscape of Advanced Breast Cancer Patients - Data from the Real-World Registry PRAEGNANT.

Comprehensive data from prospective clinical trials have led to a high level of evidence establishing CDK4/6 inhibitors in combination with endocrine treatment (CDK4/6i + ET) as a standard for the treatment of HER2-negative, hormone receptor-positive (HER2- HR+) breast cancer patients in the first-line advanced therapy setting. Data on patient populations that have been treated in the real-world setting may provide an insight into changes of patient characteristics and prognosis over time. The data were extracted from the prospective real-world registry PRAEGNANT (NCT02338167).

Serial Analysis of Gene Mutations and Gene Expression during First-Line Chemotherapy against Metastatic Colorectal Cancer: Identification of Potentially Actionable Targets within the Multicenter Prospective Biomarker Study REVEAL.

Most metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients succumb to refractory disease due to secondary chemotherapy resistance. To elucidate the molecular changes associated with secondary resistance, we recruited 64 patients with mCRC and hepatic metastases before standard first-line chemotherapy between 2014 and 2018. We subjected DNA from primary tumor specimens (P), hepatic metastasis specimens after treatment (M), and liquid biopsies (L) taken prior to (pre), during (intra), and after (post) treatment to next generation sequencing.

Scalp Cooling for Prevention of Chemotherapy-Induced Alopecia for Women and Men with Various Cancer Entities: A Two-Year Survey of an Outpatient Cancer Center in Germany.

Introduction: The aim of this survey was to assess the efficacy and the feasibility of scalp cooling (SC) in an outpatient hematological and oncological center in a real-world setting.

Methods: We prospectively monitored cancer patients from August 2017 to October 2019 receiving oncological treatments with SC, using the sensor-controlled system "DigniCap." Effectiveness was defined by a self-estimated hair loss < Grad 2 (<50%) according to the Common terminology Criteria for adverse events V4.

Landscape of Biomarkers and Actionable Gene Alterations in Adenocarcinoma of GEJ and Stomach-A Real World Data Analysis.

After several years of negative phase III trials in gastric and esophageal cancer, a significant breakthrough in the treatment of metastatic adenocarcinomas of the gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) and stomach (GC) is now becoming evident with the emerging of precision oncology and implementation of molecular targets in tumor treatment. In addition, new generation studies such as umbrella and basket trials are focused on these molecular targets, which makes an early molecular diagnosis based on IHC/ISH and NGS necessary. The required companion diagnostics of Her2neu overamplification or PD-L1 expression is based on immunohistochemistry (IHC) or additionally in situ hybridization (ISH) in case of an IHC Her2neu score of 2+.

Rare SARS-CoV-2 antibody development in cancer patients.

SARS-CoV-2 antibody development and immunity will be crucial for the further course of the pandemic. Until now, it has been assumed that patients who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 will develop antibodies as has been the case with other coronaviruses, like MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV. In the present study, we analyzed the development of antibodies in 77 patients with an oncologic diagnosis 26 days after positive RT-qPCR testing for SARS-CoV2.

SARS-CoV-2 infections in cancer outpatients-Most infected patients are asymptomatic carriers without impact on chemotherapy.

Oncologic patients are regarded as the population most at risk of developing a severe course of COVID-19 due to the fact that malignant diseases and chemotherapy often weaken the immune system. In the face of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, how particular patients deal with this infection remains an important question. In the period between the 15 and 26 April 2020, a total of 1227 patients were tested in one of seven oncologic outpatient clinics for SARS-CoV-2, regardless of symptoms, employing RT-qPCR.

Real world data analysis of next generation sequencing and protein expression in metastatic breast cancer patients.

Next generation sequencing (NGS) together with protein expression analysis is back bone of molecularly targeted therapy in precision medicine. Our retrospective study shows our experience with NGS of 324 genes in combination with protein expression in patients with advanced breast cancer (aBC). The primary purpose was to analyze the prevalence of individual genetic alterations combined with protein expression to define potential targets for an individualized therapy.

Antitumor Activity of Larotrectinib in Esophageal Carcinoma with NTRK Gene Amplification.

Background: Increasing knowledge about the genomic changes underpinning cancer development and growth has led to a rapidly expanding number of individualized therapies that specifically target these changes in a patient's tumor. Here we present a case report of a patient with metastatic esophageal carcinoma whose tumor harbored NTRK1 gene amplification and who received targeted systemic therapy with larotrectinib. At initial diagnosis, the patient presented with tumor obstruction of the middle esophagus, simultaneous liver and lung metastases, UICC IV and WHO performance status 3.

Clinical Practice Observation of Trastuzumab in Patients with Human Epidermal Growth Receptor 2-Positive Metastatic Adenocarcinoma of the Stomach or Gastroesophageal Junction.

Background: The observational study HerMES collected primary data on effectiveness and safety of trastuzumab in patients with human epidermal growth receptor 2 (HER2)-positive cancer of the stomach or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) in routine clinical practice, exploring the treatment with trastuzumab, chemotherapy backbones used, and the HER2 testing in a real-world setting in Germany.

Subjects, Materials, And Methods: This noninterventional study observed patients with histologically confirmed, HER2-positive metastatic adenocarcinoma of the stomach or GEJ, who were treated with trastuzumab according to the physicians' judgement and clinical practice. The observation phase per patient took as long as the duration of the trastuzumab therapy, but for a maximum of 12 months.

Inhibition of PLK1 by capped-dose volasertib exerts substantial efficacy in MDS and sAML while sparing healthy haematopoiesis.

Introduction: Targeting the cell cycle machinery represents a rational therapeutic approach in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and secondary acute myeloid leukemia (sAML). Despite substantial response rates, clinical use of the PLK inhibitor volasertib has been hampered by elevated side effects such as neutropenia and infections.

Objectives: The primary objective was to analyse whether a reduced dose of volasertib was able to limit toxic effects on the healthy haematopoiesis while retaining its therapeutic effect.

Venetoclax with azacitidine targets refractory MDS but spares healthy hematopoiesis at tailored dose.

Patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) and secondary Acute Myeloid Leukemia (sAML) have a very poor prognosis after failure of hypomethylating agents (HMA). Stem cell transplantation is the only effective salvage therapy, for which only a limited number of patients are eligible due to age and comorbidity. Combination therapy of venetoclax and azacitidine (5-AZA) seems to be a promising approach in myeloid malignancies, but data from patients with HMA failure are lacking.

Selective inhibition of BCL-2 is a promising target in patients with high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes and adverse mutational profile.

Somatic mutations in genes such as , , or adversely affect the outcome of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Since selective BCL-2 inhibition is a promising treatment strategy in hematologic malignancies, we tested the therapeutic impact of ABT-199 on MDS patient samples bearing an adverse mutational profile. By gene expression, we found that the level of pro-apoptotic BIM significantly decreased during MDS disease progression in line with an acquired resistance to cell death.

Importance of liver resection in case of hepatic breast cancer metastases.

Background/aims: Primary focus of the therapy of metastatic breast cancer is currently a systemic therapy. Surgical therapies are of minor importance. Aim of this study was to investigate the relevance of hepatectomy in case of hepatic breast cancer metastases (HBCM) as an important part of multimodal therapy.