Phase I trial evaluating safety and efficacy of intratumorally administered inflammatory allogeneic dendritic cells (ilixadencel) in advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors.

Background: The majority of patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) develop resistance to imatinib, and subsequent treatments have limited efficacy. Ilixadencel (allogeneic inflammatory dendritic cells) is a cell-based immune primer injected intratumorally that previously has been clinically investigated in metastatic renal cell carcinoma and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Methods: The trial was a single arm phase I trial assessing safety and efficacy of ilixadencel in subjects with progressing advanced/metastatic GIST despite ongoing treatment with second or later lines of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI).

Drug sensitivity testing on patient-derived sarcoma cells predicts patient response to treatment and identifies c-Sarc inhibitors as active drugs for translocation sarcomas.

Background: Heterogeneity and low incidence comprise the biggest challenge in sarcoma diagnosis and treatment. Chemotherapy, although efficient for some sarcoma subtypes, generally results in poor clinical responses and is mostly recommended for advanced disease. Specific genomic aberrations have been identified in some sarcoma subtypes but few of them can be targeted with approved drugs.

Oophoropexy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and contrast-enhanced ultrasound after asynchronous bilateral ovarian torsion.

A girl with asynchronous, bilateral ovarian torsion with previous oophorectomy presented with her second torsion. A laparoscopic untwisting of the torsed ovary was performed, treatment with hyperbaric oxygen therapy was given, and the outcome was followed with contrast-enhanced ultrasound. After 1 month, a laparoscopic oophoropexy was performed.

[Radiologic diagnosis of liver diseases--method development taking place on a wide front].

Radiological techniques, ultrasonography (US), computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are increasingly being used to detect and characterise liver diseases. US-guided percutaneous approaches are performed to obtain tissue specimen from the liver and for local treatment of liver tumours. Technical developments of all different modalities, new contrast agents for US and MRI, improvements in liver resection techniques as well as several ways to locally treat liver tumours have emerged during the past few years.