Pre-Post Evaluation of Collaborative Oncology Palliative Care for Patients With Stage IV Cancer.

Context: The Collaborative Care Model improves care processes and outcomes but has never been tested for palliative care.

Objectives: To develop and evaluate a model of collaborative oncology palliative care for Stage IV cancer.

Methods: We conducted a pre-post evaluation of Collaborative Oncology Palliative Care (CO-Pal), enrolling patients with Stage IV lung, breast or genitourinary cancers and acute illness hospitalization.

Rapid Induction of the Unfolded Protein Response and Apoptosis by Estrogen Mimic TTC-352 for the Treatment of Endocrine-Resistant Breast Cancer.

Patients with long-term estrogen-deprived breast cancer, after resistance to tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors develops, can experience tumor regression when treated with estrogens. Estrogen's antitumor effect is attributed to apoptosis via the estrogen receptor (ER). Estrogen treatment can have unpleasant gynecologic and nongynecologic adverse events; thus, the development of safer estrogenic agents remains a clinical priority.

Pharmacology and Molecular Mechanisms of Clinically Relevant Estrogen Estetrol and Estrogen Mimic BMI-135 for the Treatment of Endocrine-Resistant Breast Cancer.

Long-term estrogen deprivation (LTED) with tamoxifen (TAM) or aromatase inhibitors leads to endocrine-resistance, whereby physiologic levels of estrogen kill breast cancer (BC). Estrogen therapy is effective in treating patients with advanced BC after resistance to TAM and aromatase inhibitors develops. This therapeutic effect is attributed to estrogen-induced apoptosis via the estrogen receptor (ER).

The association of erythroblasts with macrophages promotes erythroid proliferation and maturation: a 30-kD heparin-binding protein is involved in this contact.

Although the association of erythroblasts with macrophages has been well documented in the human bone marrow, the function and identification of the intimate contacts occurring between the membranes of these two cell types in the physiology of erythropoiesis is not known. Using in vitro cultures of human peripheral blood derived erythroid progenitors, we have shown the presence of erythroblastic islands consisting of a central macrophage surrounded by a ring of erythroblasts that undergo terminal maturation leading to enucleation. However, when cultures were carried in the absence of intact macrophages, erythroid cells matured to the late erythroblast stage but failed to enucleate.

Molecular basis of spectrin deficiency in hereditary pyropoikilocytosis.

Hereditary pyropoikilocytosis (HPP) is a recessively inherited hemolytic anemia characterized by severe poikilocytosis and red blood cell fragmentation. HPP red blood cells are partially deficient in spectrin and contain a mutant alpha or beta-spectrin that is defective in terms of spectrin self-association. Although the nature of the latter defect has been studied in considerable detail and many mutations of alpha-spectrin and beta spectrin have been identified, the molecular basis of spectrin deficiency is unknown.