One-step prepectoral breast reconstruction with porcine dermal matrix-covered implant: a protective technique improving the outcome in post-mastectomy radiation therapy setting.

Background: Post-mastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) applied on implant-assisted immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) involves a marked increase in complication rate. The recent opportunity of performing an ADM-assisted prepectoral breast reconstruction (PPBR) raised the hypotesis of a protective interaction between ADM and periprosthetic tissues under PMRT.

Methods: We performed a retrospective monocentric analysis of a cohort of consecutively treated patients undergone one-step PPBR between January 2015 and September 2018.

Sentinel lymph node surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with T2 to T4, N0 and N1 breast cancer.

Background: Histological status of axillary lymph nodes is an important prognostic factor in patients receiving surgery for breast cancer (BC). Sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy (B) has rapidly replaced axillary lymph node dissection (ALND), and is now the standard of care for axillary staging in patients with clinically node-negative (N0) operable BC. The aim of this study is to compare pretreatment lymphoscintigraphy with a post primary systemic treatment (PST) scan in order to reduce the false-negative rates for SLNB.

A Phase II study of olaparib in breast cancer patients: biological evaluation from a 'window of opportunity' trial.

The OLTRE trial (ClinicalTrials.gov number: NCT02681562) is an open-label, 'window of opportunity' Phase II controlled trial to evaluate the biological activity of olaparib in locally advanced triple-negative breast cancer compared with other subtypes of locally advanced breast cancer patients carrying germinal BRCA mutation receiving olaparib with the same treatment approach. The primary end point is to investigate the correlation between baseline gene and protein expression profile in order to identify possible predictive markers of response to olaparib.

Increased pathological complete response rate after a long-term neoadjuvant letrozole treatment in postmenopausal oestrogen and/or progesterone receptor-positive breast cancer.

Background: The objective of this study was to determine the optimal scheduling of 2.5 mg daily letrozole in neoadjuvant breast cancer patients to obtain pathological complete response (pathCR) and assess Ki-67 expression as an early predictor of response.

Patients And Methods: This single institution study comprised 120 oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive postmenopausal women with primary breast cancer (clinical stage ≥ T2, N0-1), from three sequential cohorts (cohort A of 40, cohort B of 40 and cohort C of 40 patients, respectively) based on different duration of the neoadjuvant letrozole.

Physico-chemical characterization and biological evaluation of two fibroin materials.

Silk fibroin fibres from two different sources, Bombyx mori pure-breed silkworms and polyhybrid cross-bred silkworm cocoons, were treated with formic acid under planar stirring conditions to prepare non-woven nets. The treatment partially dissolved the fibres, which bound together and formed a non-woven micrometric net with fibres coated by a thin layer of low molecular weight fibroin matrix. The starting fibres, net materials and fibroin coating layer were characterized in terms of amino acid composition, molecular weight and calorimetric properties.