Metaplastic breast cancer: A review.

Metaplastic breast cancer (MpBC) is an uncommon aggressive malignancy that is associated with a poor prognosis. Due to its rarity, the relationships between the clinical and pathological features of MpBC, treatment approach, and clinical outcomes remain underexplored. In the following review article, we synthesize the existing data on the clinical, pathological and genomic features, management, and outcomes of MpBC.

Contrast-enhanced 4D-MRI for internal target volume generation in treatment planning for liver tumors.

Background: Liver tumors are often invisible on four-dimensional commuted tomography (4D-CT). Imperfect imaging surrogates are used to estimate the tumor motion. Here, we assessed multiple 4D magnetic resonance (MR) binning algorithms for directly visualizing liver tumor motion for radiotherapy planning.

Residents-as-Teachers Curriculum for Radiation Oncology: A Targeted Needs Assessment.

Purpose: Achieving competency as educators is increasingly recognized as a critical part of residents' training in graduate medical education across specialties. In addition to teaching medical students, radiation oncology residents often play a vital role in peer and interprofessional education. We conducted a survey to identify the needs of radiation oncology residents for developing skills in teaching.

Association Between Androgen Deprivation Therapy and Patient-reported Depression in Men With Recurrent Prostate Cancer.

Background: Previous studies have reported conflicting results on the relationship between androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and the risk of depression. We assessed whether ADT is associated with depression in a unique data set of men with recurrent prostate cancer.

Patients And Methods: We studied a cohort of 656 men in the prospective COMPARE (Comprehensive, Multicenter, Prostate Adenocarcinoma) registry who experienced biochemical recurrence after radiation therapy (RT) only, radical prostatectomy (RP) with or without RT, or ADT with RP or RT.

A breath fungal secondary metabolite signature to diagnose invasive aspergillosis.

Background: Invasive aspergillosis (IA) remains a leading cause of mortality in immunocompromised patients, in part due to the difficulty of diagnosing this infection.

Methods: Using thermal desorption-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, we characterized the in vitro volatile metabolite profile of Aspergillus fumigatus, the most common cause of IA, and other pathogenic aspergilli. We prospectively collected breath samples from patients with suspected invasive fungal pneumonia from 2011 to 2013, and assessed whether we could discriminate patients with proven or probable IA from patients without aspergillosis, as determined by European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer/Mycoses Study Group consensus definitions, by direct detection of fungal volatile metabolites in these breath samples.

Cytotoxicity of a Ti(IV) compound is independent of serum proteins.

Titanium(IV) compounds are excellent anticancer drug candidates, but they have yet to find success in clinical applications. A major limitation in developing further compounds has been a general lack of understanding of the mechanism governing their bioactivity. To determine factors necessary for bioactivity, we tested the cytotoxicity of different ligand compounds in conjunction with speciation studies and mass spectrometry bioavailability measurements.

A global metabolite profiling approach to identify protein-metabolite interactions.

Understanding the biochemical functions of proteins is an important factor in elucidating their cellular and physiological functions. Due to the predominance of biopolymer interactions in biology, many methods have been designed to interrogate and identify biologically relevant interactions that proteins make to DNA, RNA, and other proteins. Complementary approaches that can elucidate binding interactions between proteins and small molecule metabolites will impact the understanding of protein-metabolite interactions and fill a need that is outside the scope of current methods.