Antibodies and Engineered Antibody Fragments against M13 Filamentous Phage to Facilitate Phage-Display-Based Molecular Breeding.

Antibodies are essential for characterizing various analytes. "Molecular-breeding" approaches enable rapid generation of antibody mutants with desirable antigen-binding abilities. Typically, prototype antibodies are converted to single-chain Fv fragments (scFvs), and random mutations are genetically introduced to construct molecular libraries with a vast diversity.

The biochemical recurrence-free rate in patients who underwent prostate low-dose-rate brachytherapy, using two different definitions.

Background: To assess the biochemical recurrence (BCR)-free rate in patients who underwent prostate low-dose-rate brachytherapy (LDR-brachytherapy), using two different definitions (Phoenix definition and PSA ≥ 0.2 ng/mL).

Methods: Two hundreds and three patients who were clinically diagnosed with localized prostate cancer (cT1c-2cN0M0) and underwent LDR-brachytherapy between July 2004 and September 2008 were enrolled.

Efficacy of FDG-PET for defining gross tumor volume of head and neck cancer.

We analyzed the data for 53 patients with histologically proven primary squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck treated with radiotherapy between February 2006 and August 2009. All patients underwent contrast-enhanced (CE)-CT and (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-PET before radiation therapy planning (RTP) to define the gross tumor volume (GTV). The PET-based GTV (PET-GTV) for RTP was defined using both CE-CT images and FDG-PET images.

Changes of tumor size and tumor contrast enhancement during radiotherapy for non-small-cell lung cancer may be suggestive of treatment response.

We evaluated sequential dynamic contrast-enhanced CT (DCE-CT) scans to assess the possibility of early prediction of treatment responses by quantifying the tumor size reduction and the change in tumor enhancement during and after a course of radiotherapy (RT). Thirty-nine patients with non-small-cell lung cancer were treated with RT for initial treatment. DCE-CT scan was performed within one week before the beginning of treatment, after 17 or 18 fractions (34 or 36 Gy), and 1 week and 1 month after the end of RT.

[Application of PET in radiation oncology].

Positron emission tomography (PET), especially F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-PET, has been recently used to verify the target volume in radiation treatment planning (RTP) for malignancies. The utility of FDG-PET/CT in defining gross tumor volume (GTV) has been shown in many studies, and the target delineation by a fixed threshold of the maximum standardized uptake value (40-50%) is suggested to be useful in RTP for lung cancer, head and neck cancer, etc. But, the spatial resolution, sensitivity, and specificity of PET are not always enough to define the difference between the GTV and the clinical target volume(CTV).