Publications by authors named "Kevin Elias"

Article Synopsis
  • Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) is a group of curable pregnancy-related tumors, but 25% of patients may experience treatment-resistant or recurring cases after chemotherapy.
  • The review highlights various factors affecting the prognosis of low-risk GTN, such as FIGO risk score, patient age, tumor characteristics, and hCG levels, emphasizing the need for personalized treatment approaches.
  • It also identifies independent risk factors for resistance and recurrence, noting that previous studies have limitations like small sample sizes and lack of comprehensive analysis, which could impact the understanding of these issues.
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Ultra high-risk gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) refers to patients with World Health Organization prognostic risk scores of at least 13. The mortality risk for these patients averages 30%. Ultra high-risk GTN more frequently presents with higher tumor volume, liver and/or brain metastases, and very high human chorionic gonadotropin levels.

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Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) is a rare form of cancer that is treated according to the World Health Organization (WHO) risk score, which predicts responsiveness to single-agent chemotherapy. Patients with WHO risk scores ≤6 have low-risk GTN, for which cure rates near 100%. Most women with low-risk GTN will respond to single-agent chemotherapy, which is given with either methotrexate or dactinomycin, and allows women to retain their fertility.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Placental site trophoblastic disease (PSTT) and epithelioid trophoblastic tumor (ETT) are rare types of gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) that present distinct clinical features and treatment approaches, notably without significantly elevated human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) levels.
  • - Management typically involves surgery, such as hysterectomy, and lymph node removal; there are some cases where fertility-sparing surgeries have been performed for localized disease.
  • - While early-stage, low-risk cases show good survival rates, high-risk patients, especially those with advanced disease or post-48 months from previous pregnancies, have a poor prognosis and require new treatment options.
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High-risk gestational trophoblastic neoplasia encompasses patients with high volumes of disease or diffuse metastatic involvement who are unlikely to achieve remission with single-agent chemotherapy. Etoposide-based multi-drug regimens form the core of high-risk therapy. Second-line therapy includes platinum-based regimens.

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Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) is primarily treated with chemotherapy, but surgery plays a key role at different steps in disease management, including initial diagnosis, primary therapy, and salvage options. Initial diagnosis is usually made by electric or manual vacuum aspiration for molar pregancy or uterine curettage for other forms of GTN. Excisional procedures of localized disease, whether second curettage or hysterectomy, can obviate chemotherapy, but patients still require monitoring for relapse.

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Article Synopsis
  • Complete and partial molar pregnancies result from abnormal fertilization and excessive growth of specific cells called syncytiotrophoblasts.
  • Early diagnosis has improved, reducing severe complications, but the risk of developing gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) remains the same.
  • Initial assessments should include blood tests and ultrasounds, and after treatment, ongoing monitoring is crucial; psychological support is recommended for all patients.
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Objective: To report the New England Trophoblastic Disease Center (NETDC) experience with atypical placental site nodules (APSN).

Methods: The NETDC registry was reviewed from 2005 to 2022 and clinical data abstracted. Expert pathologists in GTD reviewed available slides with concurrent immunohistochemical analysis.

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Objective: To determine whether a multimodal assay combining serum microRNA with protein biomarkers and metadata improves triage assessment of an adnexal mass.

Methods: Serum samples from 468 training subjects (191 cancer cases and 277 benign adnexal mass controls or healthy controls) were analyzed for seven protein biomarkers and 180 miRNA. Circulating analyte data were combined with age and menopausal status (metadata) into a neural network model to classify samples as cases or controls.

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Article Synopsis
  • Effective strategies for early detection of epithelial ovarian cancer are currently insufficient; this study assessed a panel of 14 circulating microRNAs to differentiate between ovarian cancer cases diagnosed less than 2 years and those diagnosed 2-7 years after serum collection.
  • The study involved 80 ovarian cancer cases and used the XGBoost algorithm to create a binary classification model, training it on 70% of the data and testing it on the remaining 30%.
  • Results showed the microRNA panel performed well, with a median AUC of 0.771, and identified four specific miRNAs that were significantly upregulated closer to the diagnosis, indicating potential for robust early detection of ovarian cancer.
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Article Synopsis
  • - This study investigates how different sociodemographic factors and health conditions impact serum microRNA (miRNA) levels in women who do not have ovarian cancer, using data from 1,576 women from a biobank between 2012 and 2019.
  • - Significant variations in miRNA expression were linked to factors such as age, obesity, menopause, BRCA gene mutations, and medical history, while other factors like smoking and diabetes had little influence.
  • - The findings highlight the necessity to account for these confounding variables when developing clinical tests for cancer screening, improving the accuracy of miRNA biomarkers for ovarian cancer detection.
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Objective: We recently characterized the clinical performance of a multivariate index assay (MIA3G) to assess ovarian cancer risk for adnexal masses at initial presentation. This study evaluated how MIA3G varies when applied longitudinally to monitor risk during clinical follow-up.

Method: The study evaluated women presenting with adnexal masses from eleven centers across the US.

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Introduction: Prior studies have investigated the diagnostic potential of microRNA (miRNA) expression profiles for endometriosis. However, the vast majority of previous studies have only included adult women. Therefore, we sought to investigate differential expression of miRNAs among adolescents and young adults with endometriosis.

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Background: Ovarian cancer remains the deadliest of the gynecologic cancers in the United States. There have been limited advances in treatment strategies that have seen marked increases in overall survival. Thus, it is essential to continue developing and validating new treatment strategies and markers to identify patients who would benefit from the new strategy.

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Article Synopsis
  • - This study examines how compliance with the Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) protocol affects surgical recovery outcomes in four different surgery types across two major healthcare systems in the US.
  • - Key findings show that specific ERAS practices, such as early Foley catheter removal and limited use of NG tubes, led to shorter hospital stays and fewer complications for liver, pancreas, and head and neck surgeries.
  • - The research highlights the importance of individual ERAS recommendations and suggests that future studies should explore how these recommendations can be better applied in real-world surgical settings.
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Article Synopsis
  • This study investigates how race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status affect serum miRNA profiles, which are potential biomarkers for ovarian cancer.
  • The analysis involved serum samples from 1,586 patients, showing differences in miRNA expression among various racial and ethnic groups, with significant variations observed in seven out of eight miRNAs related to ovarian cancer risk.
  • The research emphasizes the importance of acknowledging baseline differences in biomarker tests to ensure equitable clinical implementation across diverse populations.*
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Article Synopsis
  • * Traditional immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapies targeting the PD-(L)1 axis have been largely ineffective, prompting researchers to explore the use of epigenetic modulators for better personalized immunotherapy outcomes.
  • * A novel 3D screening platform using patient-derived tumor samples has shown that responses to chemotherapy and immunotherapy correlate with immune cell activity and tumor characteristics, suggesting that combining epigenetic priming with ICB could enhance immune response and offer more effective treatment strategies.
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Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer.

Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med

November 2023

The risk of death from ovarian cancer is highly associated with the clinical stage at diagnosis. Efforts to implement screening for ovarian cancer have been largely unsuccessful, due to the low prevalence of the disease in the general population and the heterogeneity of the various cancer types that fall under the ovarian cancer designation. A practical test for early detection will require both high sensitivity and high specificity to balance reducing the number of cancer deaths with minimizing surgical interventions for false positive screens.

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Objective:  To assess the potential relationship of clinical status upon admission and distance traveled from geographical health district in women with gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD).

Methods:  This is a cross-sectional study including women with GTD from the 17 health districts from the São Paulo state (I-XVII), Brazil, referred to the Botucatu Trophoblastic Disease Center (specialized center, district VI), between 1990 and 2018. At admission, hydatidiform mole was assessed according to the risk score system of Berkowitz et al.

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Objective: To relate the distance traveled from the patient's residence to the gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) reference center (RC) and the occurrence of unfavorable clinical outcomes, as well as to estimate the possible association between this distance and the risk of metastatic disease at presentation, the need for multiagent chemotherapy to achieve remission and loss to follow-up before remission.

Study Design: Retrospective historical cohort study of patients with GTN followed at 8 Brazilian GTN-RC, from January 1st, 2000 - December 31st, 2017.

Results: Evaluating 1055 cases of GTN, and using a receiver operating characteristic curve, we found a distance of 56 km (km) from the residence to the GTN-RC (sensitivity = 0.

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Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of immunotherapy for GTN treatment after methotrexate-resistance or in cases of multiresistant disease, through a systematic review, as well as to present the first 4 Brazilian cases of immunotherapy for GTN treatment.

Methods: Three independent researchers searched five electronic databases (EMBASE, LILACS, Medline, CENTRAL and Web of Science), for relevant articles up to February/2023 (PROSPERO CRD42023401453). The quality assessment was performed using the Newcastle Ottawa scale for case series and case reports.

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Background: Treatment options for premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) are limited to hormone replacement and donor oocytes. A novel induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) transplant paradigm in a mouse model has potential translational applications for management of POI.

Methods: Mouse ovarian granulosa cell derived-iPSCS were labelled with green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter and differentiated in vitro into oocytes.

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