Long-term significance of urinary neopterin in ovarian cancer: a study by the Austrian Association for Gynecologic Oncology (AGO).

Background: Neopterin is produced by activated macrophages upon stimulation with interferon-γ (IFN-γ) and thus, elevated neopterin concentrations in patients indicate cellular inate immune response. Most studies in patients with malignant diseases found an association between higher neopterin concentrations and reduced survival and impaired prognosis. Nevertheless, neopterin is not a classical tumor marker since it is not produced by the cancer cells themselves.

Perinatal mortality and advanced maternal age.

Objective: To investigate the impact of advanced maternal age on the rate of perinatal mortality.

Design: Retrospective cohort study including all 56,517 singleton hospital deliveries between 1999 and 2008.

Methods: Data were analyzed according to maternal age at delivery in 3 groups of women, 25-34 years, 35-39 years and ≥ 40 years, using the youngest as the reference group.

Left ventricular function many years after recovery from pre-eclampsia.

Objective: Epidemiological observations have shown that women with pre-eclampsia are at increased risk for subsequent development of cardiovascular disease. We evaluated maternal haemodynamics in asymptomatic women many years after pre-eclampsia and HELLP (haemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and low platelets) syndrome.

Design: Case-control study.

Methylated NEUROD1 promoter is a marker for chemosensitivity in breast cancer.

Purpose: Chemotherapy can be an integral component of the adjuvant management strategy for women with early stage breast cancer. To date, no tool is available to predict or monitor the efficacy of these therapies. The aim of this proof-of-principle study was to assess whether NEUROD1 DNA methylation is able to predict the response to neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy.

HOXA11 DNA methylation--a novel prognostic biomarker in ovarian cancer.

Epigenetic alterations play a major role in cancer. Recently we reported that stem cell Polycomb group targets (PcGTs) are up to 12-fold more likely to have cancer-specific promoter DNA hypermethylation than nontargets. To identify potential, prognostic DNA methylation markers in ovarian cancer we analyzed the DNA methylation at 71 different loci in 22 ovarian cancers and 18 non-neoplastic ovarian specimens by means of a quantitative, real-time PCR-based technique (MethyLight).