Descriptive regression tree analysis of intersecting predictors of adult self-rated health: Does gender matter? A cross-sectional study of Canadian adults.

Background: While self-rated health (SRH) is a well-validated indicator, its alignment with objective health is inconsistent, particularly among women and older adults. This may reflect group-based differences in characteristics considered when rating health. Using a combination of SRH and satisfaction with health (SH) could capture lived realities for all, thus enabling a more accurate search for predictors of subjective health.

A Genomically Characterized Collection of High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer Xenografts for Preclinical Testing.

High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality from gynecologic malignant tumors. Overall survival remains low because of the nearly ubiquitous emergence of platinum resistance and the paucity of effective next-line treatments. Current cell culture-based models show limited similarity to HGSC and are therefore unreliable predictive models for preclinical evaluation of investigational drugs.

The prognostic value of perioperative, pre-systemic therapy CA125 levels in patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer.

Objective: To investigate the ability of preoperative CA125 and post-surgical CA125 changes to predict outcomes among patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC).

Methods: The present retrospective cohort study included patients with HGSC who underwent surgery between January 1, 2003, and December 31, 2011 at Princess Margaret Cancer Center, Toronto, ON, Canada. CA125 was measured at diagnosis and following surgery, and the CA125 ratio was calculated (preoperative CA125/postoperative CA125).

The optimal time for surgery in women with serous ovarian cancer.

Background: Advanced high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSC) is commonly treated with surgery and chemotherapy. We investigated the survival of patients treated with primary or interval surgery at different times following neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Their survival was compared with that of patients treated with primary cytoreductive surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy.

Biologically-targeted detection of primary and micro-metastatic ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of morbidity/mortality from gynecologic malignancy. Early detection of disease is difficult due to the propensity for ovarian cancer to disseminate throughout the peritoneum. Currently, there is no single accurate test to detect primary or recurrent ovarian cancer.

Regulation of CD133 by HDAC6 promotes β-catenin signaling to suppress cancer cell differentiation.

The pentaspan membrane glycoprotein CD133 marks lineage-specific cancer progenitor cells and is associated with poor prognosis in a number of tumor types. Despite its utility as a cancer progenitor cell marker, CD133 protein regulation and molecular function remain poorly understood. We find that the deacetylase HDAC6 physically associates with CD133 to negatively regulate CD133 trafficking down the endosomal-lysosomal pathway for degradation.

Phenotypic heterogeneity and instability of human ovarian tumor-initiating cells.

The cancer stem cell (CSC) model proposes that tumors have a hierarchical organization in which only some cells indefinitely self-renew and thereby sustain tumor growth. In addition, the CSC model requires that tumor-initiating cells (TICs) be prospectively isolatable on the basis of their phenotype. Previous studies have suggested that serous ovarian cancer (SOC) conforms to the CSC model, but these used arguably nonfidelitous immortalized cell lines, cultured primary cells, or passaged xenografts as the source of tumor cells.