Publications by authors named "H G Walch"
Purpose: Mutational data from multiple solid and liquid biospecimens of a single patient are often integrated to track cancer evolution. However, there is no accepted framework to resolve if individual samples from the same individual share variants due to common identity versus coincidence.
Experimental Design: Utilizing 8,000 patient tumors from The Cancer Genome Atlas across 33 cancer types, we estimated the background rates of co-occurrence of mutations between discrete pairs of samples across cancers and by cancer type.
Article Synopsis
- Gallbladder cancer (GBC) is a highly lethal cancer with low overall incidence but higher prevalence in specific regions like Chile; this study compares clinical and molecular features of GBC patients from Chile and the US.
- The study involved 260 patients, revealing a significantly higher rate of gallstones in the Chilean cohort and similar genetic alteration prevalence between the two groups, with overall alterations found in 14% of patients.
- Patients with GBC having genetic alterations showed better overall survival rates, suggesting they may benefit from targeted therapies, highlighting the necessity for broader genomic analysis in regions with high GBC rates.
Article Synopsis
- Hepatic artery infusion (HAI) chemotherapy combined with systemic treatment shows promising long-term results for patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (IHC), suggesting improved disease control and overall survival rates.
- A phase II clinical trial and a retrospective analysis revealed a median progression-free survival (PFS) of 11.8 months and overall survival (OS) of 26.8 months among a subset of patients, with particular genomic alterations indicating worse outcomes.
- The study indicates that HAI with floxuridine (FUDR) alongside systemic therapies can provide durable disease control in locally advanced IHC, while molecular changes, particularly in the TP53 pathway, might help predict patient response to treatment.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates the role of microsatellite instability (MSI-H) in pancreatic cancer (PC) associated with Lynch syndrome (LS), focusing on both germline and somatic variants that affect mismatch repair genes.
- It involves a retrospective analysis of 55 PC patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, revealing that a significant portion of those with LS and somatic MMR variants exhibit MSI-H status, which could impact treatment responses to immune therapy.
- Results showed that 59% of LS cohort patients had MSI-H, whereas 43% in the somatic MMR cohort had the same status, suggesting distinct genetic characteristics and age differences at diagnosis between the two groups.
KRAS mutations in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are suggested to vary in oncogenicity but the implications for human patients have not been explored in depth. We examined 1,360 consecutive PDAC patients undergoing surgical resection and find that KRAS mutations are enriched in early-stage (stage I) disease, owing not to smaller tumor size but increased node-negativity. KRAS tumors are associated with decreased distant recurrence and improved survival as compared to KRAS.
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