Publications by authors named "Irmejs A"

: Sensation of the breast skin and nipple-areolar complex (NAC) is commonly assumed to be diminished or completely absent following nipple-sparing mastectomy (NSM) with implant- or expander-based reconstruction. The purpose of this cohort study was to evaluate breast skin and NAC long-term touch pressure sensibility, from 1 month to 1 year, after NSM followed by reconstruction with an implant or expander, and patient quality of life (QoL), hypothesizing that sensibility may diminish with a small progressive return throughout the postoperative period. : This was achieved by performing sensation tests using Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments (SWM) in nine predefined points of the breast and NAC, a two-point discrimination test (TPD) in the four quadrants of the breast, and QoL assessment using the BREAST-Q.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Following nipple-sparing mastectomy (NSM), patients commonly experience significant impairment or total loss of nipple sensitivity, which negatively impacts the patients' quality of life, whereas patients who retain nipple sensation postoperatively experience enhanced physical, psychosocial, and sexual well-being. Reinnervation techniques such as nerve allografting have been utilized to retain sensation. Despite the benefits of nerve allografts, such as lack of donor site morbidity, ease of use, and potentially shorter surgery time, there are shortcomings, such as the cost of commercially available acellular nerve allografts, and, most importantly, decreased sensory and motor function recovery for acellular nerve allografts with a diameter greater than 3 mm or a length greater than 50 mm.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Females with PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome (PHTS) have breast cancer risks up to 76%. This study assessed associations between breast cancer and lifestyle in European female adult PHTS patients. Data were collected via patient questionnaires (July 2020-March 2023) and genetic diagnoses from medical files.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Triple-negative breast cancer is a heterogeneous molecular subtype of BC. Pathological complete response (pCR) is an important surrogate marker for recurrence-free and overall survival.

Aim Of Study: The aim of this study was to evaluate clinical and pathological factors that are associated with complete pathological response status in triple-negative breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Pathogenic PTEN germline variants lead to PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome (PHTS), which exhibits a range of symptoms and genetic mutations, underscoring the importance of understanding these associations for better diagnostics and personalized treatment.
  • A study involving 510 patients identified 268 pathogenic variants, revealing trends such as adults having more truncating variants and children more often presenting with macrocephaly and developmental delays.
  • Findings suggest that the type of PTEN variant (missense vs. truncating) correlates with the age of disease onset and specific phenotypes, indicating that genetic variation influences the clinical features of PHTS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: While BRCA1/2 gene mutational spectrum and clinical features are widely studied, there is limited data on breast cancer-predisposing non-BRCA pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants (PV/LPVs) in the Baltic states region. According to previous studies, CHEK2 is the most frequent moderate-risk breast cancer predisposition gene. The study aimed to analyse the frequency and mutational spectrum of CHEK2 PV/LPVs in the Baltic states region and perform a literature review on the subject.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Often young women affected with BRCA1/2 positive breast cancer have not finished or even not started their childbearing before the onset of the disease. The aim of our mini-review is to summarize state of art knowledge on pregnancy after breast cancer in BRCA1/2 carriers.

Methods: A broad review of the literature was conducted using MEDLINE (via PubMed) for relevant articles published.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Nipple-sparing mastectomy (NSM) with immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) is increasingly used for both breast cancer (TNSM) and risk reduction (RRNSM). The aim of the study is to report the results of the INSPIRE registry assessing health-related quality of life (HRQoL) comparing baseline and 1-year follow-up, regarding surgical indications and chemotherapy (CT) received.

Methods: INSPIRE is a prospective database including women undergoing NSM and IBR from 18 countries.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

An important group of breast cancers is those associated with inherited susceptibility. In women, several predisposing mutations in genes involved in DNA repair have been discovered. Women with a germline pathogenic variant in have a lifetime cancer risk of 70%.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Aim of the study is to evaluate the role of ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in the restaging of node positive breast cancer after preoperative systemic therapy (PST).

Methods: From January 2016 - October 2020 106 node positive stage IIA-IIIC breast cancer cases undergoing PST were included in the study. 18 (17 %) were carriers of pathogenic variant in BRCA1/2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Several recent studies in the Baltic region have found extended spectrum of pathogenic variants (PV) of the BRCA1/2 genes. The aim of current study is to analyze the spectrum of the BRCA1/2 PV in population of Latvia and to compare common PV between populations of the Baltic region.

Methods: We present a cohort of 9543 unrelated individuals including ones with cancer and unaffected individuals from population of Latvia, who were tested for three most common BRCA1 founder PV.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Immediate breast reconstructions (IBR) have become an integral part of modern breast cancer management. However, in a small breast unit the spectrum of methods used for IBR could be limited, which could result in poorer results in some cases. The aim of the study is to evaluate the patient satisfaction and aesthetic outcome results in a breast unit where only implant-based IBR were performed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Large-scale case control studies revealed a number of moderate risk - low frequency breast cancer alleles of the and genes. Some of these were reported as founder variants of Central and Eastern Europe. Based on highly similar founder variant spectra of the in Poland and Latvia, we decided to test the frequency of other common variants of moderate breast cancer risk - c.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: There is increasing evidence of high platinum sensitivity in -associated breast cancer. However, evidence from randomized trials is lacking. The aim of this study was to analyze the results of platinum-based chemotherapy for BRCA1-positive breast cancer in a neoadjuvant setting.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Here we report the case of a noncompliant 50-year-old female patient with high-grade, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and strong family cancer history. She only agreed to start treatment after being admitted to the hospital with advanced stage disease and severe anaemia resulting from bulky, ulcerated, and actively bleeding tumor. Therapy was promptly started with platinum-based chemotherapy, resulting in extremely rapid clinical remission and complete control of local symptoms.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Our objective was to determine: 1) whether the checkpoint kinase 2 () del5395 (g.27417113-27422508 del, NC_000022.11) is a founder mutation in the Latvian population, 2) if there is an association between del5395 mutation and cancer risk, and 3) and whether the del5395 mutation impacts cancer predisposition in Chernobyl disaster liquidators (the civil and military personnel who were called upon to deal with consequences of the 1986 nuclear disaster) as well as geriatric populations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The continued identification of new low-penetrance genetic variants for colorectal cancer (CRC) raises the question of their potential cumulative effect among compound carriers. We focused on 6 SNPs (rs380284, rs4464148, rs4779584, rs4939827, rs6983267, and rs10795668), already described as risk markers, and tested their possible independent and combined contribution to CRC predisposition. Material and Methods.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Hereditary triple-negative breast cancer patients have better recurrence-free survival than triple-negative sporadic ones. High expression of some of the miRNAs is related to worse overall and disease-free survival of triple-negative breast cancer patients. The attempt to associate expression level of some miRNA in triple-negative hereditary and sporadic breast cancers to disease specific survival was performed in this study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objective: Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most common form of cancer in males worldwide. One of the highest PCa-related mortality rates in the world is observed in Latvia.

Materials And Methods: Our study included male patients diagnosed with PCa between 1990 and 2012.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is proposed to be an immunohistochemical surrogate of the basal-like breast cancer subtype. In spite of the relative chemosensitivity of this cancer subtype, it is characterized by aggressive clinical behavior; therefore, a further subclassification of TNBC is required to develop new targeted treatment. In previous studies, a strong correlation between mutation-associated tumors and TNBC has been identified.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The estimated ratio of hereditary breast/ovarian cancer (HBOC) based on family history is 1.5% in Latvia. This is significantly lower than the European average of 5-10%.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

BRCA1-associated breast cancer is considered an unique clinical entity with its own specific histopathological characteristics. Several recently published large studies have shown that overall survival of BRCA1 mutation carriers having breast cancer is similar to sporadic breast cancer patients. It was also suggested that better response to chemotherapy is one of the most important factors that improves the clinical outcome of breast cancers with unfavorable histopathological subtypes in BRCA1 mutation carriers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF