A Comparative Study of Methyl-BEAMing and Droplet Digital PCR for Gene Promoter Hypermethylation Detection.

is responsible for the direct repair of O6-methylguanine lesions induced by alkylating agents, including temozolomide. promoter hypermethylation is a well-established biomarker for temozolomide response in glioblastoma patients, also correlated with therapeutic response in colorectal cancer. The ARETHUSA clinical trial aims to stratify colorectal cancer patients based on their mismatch repair status.

Ongoing Clinical Trials and Future Research Scenarios of Circulating Tumor DNA for the Treatment of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.

Liquid biopsy using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has emerged as a minimally invasive, timely approach to provide molecular diagnosis and monitor tumor evolution in patients with cancer. Since the molecular landscape of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) is substantially heterogeneous and dynamic over space and time, ctDNA holds significant advantages as a biomarker for this disease. Numerous studies have demonstrated that ctDNA broadly recapitulates the molecular profile of the primary tumor and metastases, and have mainly focused on the genotyping of RAS and BRAF, that is propaedeutic for anti-EGFR treatment selection.

Ramucirumab as Second-Line Therapy in Metastatic Gastric Cancer: Real-World Data from the RAMoss Study.

Background: Ramucirumab-alone or combined with paclitaxel-represents one of the main options for patients failing first-line treatment for advanced gastric cancer.

Objective: The RAMoss study aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy profile of ramucirumab in the "real-life setting".

Patients And Methods: Patients from 25 Italian hospitals started therapy consisting of ramucirumab 8 mg/kg i.

Pilot evaluation of scrambler therapy for pain induced by bone and visceral metastases and refractory to standard therapies.

Purpose: Scrambler therapy is a non-invasive neurocutaneous electrical pain intervention, effective for the treatment of neuropathic pain. Currently, few data about the efficacy of this treatment in cancer pain induced by skeletal and visceral metastases are available. The aim of this single-center case series is to evaluate the efficacy of scrambler therapy in reducing this kind of cancer pain after failure of standard treatments, including pharmacological therapies and radiation therapy.

Effects of gefitinib on serum epidermal growth factor receptor and HER2 in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess serum extracellular binding domains of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and HER2 as surrogate markers of Gefitinib (Iressa, ZD1839, AstraZeneca, London, United Kingdom) activity in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Experimental Design: Serum EGFR and HER2 levels were monitored in blood samples taken within 1 week of starting Gefitinib at day 28 and at every computed tomography scan evaluation. EGFR and HER-2 were assayed in duplicate using commercial sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits (Oncogene Science Bayer Corporation, Cambridge, UK).

Phase II study of weekly paclitaxel as second-line therapy in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

A growing number of patients, mainly cisplatin-pretreated, require second-line therapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) but the optimal treatment and appropriate criteria for patient selection have not been defined yet. A second-line phase II study was conducted in cisplatin-pretreated patients with advanced NSCLC to evaluate the activity and toxicity of weekly paclitaxel. Fifty-three consecutive NSCLC patients (9 stage IIIA-B, 44 stage IV) progressing after one front line cisplatin-based chemotherapy were enrolled.