Publications by authors named "Li-Tzong Chen"

Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how the cytotoxin-associated gene A (CagA) influences cell cycle progression in B lymphoma cells by activating nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT), which may affect the response to Helicobacter pylori eradication in gastric MALT lymphoma.
  • Researchers used three B-lymphoma cell lines and evaluated their response to H. pylori strains, measuring CagA expression, NFATc1 signaling, and cell cycle inhibitors.
  • Results show a significant link between CagA presence, nuclear NFATc1 localization, and responsiveness to treatment, suggesting that both CagA and NFATc1 may play roles in improving therapy outcomes for patients with gastric MALT lymphoma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: The progression patterns, dispositions, and outcomes of patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who achieved durable responses with immunotherapy remain poorly characterized.

Methods: Patients with advanced HCC who received immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI)-based immunotherapy and achieved durable responses were retrospectively included. A durable response was defined as partial response (PR) or stable disease (SD) per RECIST 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Nivolumab combined with chemotherapy has become the standard treatment for advanced HER2-negative gastric cancer, with a focus on understanding its long-term effects through clinical trials.
  • In the ATTRACTON-4 trial, conducted across Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, patients were assigned to either nivolumab or a placebo alongside common chemotherapy regimens, with the primary goals being progression-free survival and overall survival.
  • After three years, the nivolumab group showed longer progression-free survival but similar overall survival compared to the placebo group, with a significant majority of patients who responded completely to treatment remaining alive, indicating its effective and safe use in this setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigated the clinical outcomes of patients in Taiwan with advanced or recurrent gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) from 2010 to 2020.
  • A total of 224 patients were analyzed, revealing significant survival rates: 50.5% progression-free survival (PFS) and 79.5% overall survival (OS) at 48 months for those treated with imatinib; other treatments like sunitinib and regorafenib showed shorter PFS.
  • The research highlighted specific genetic mutations (c-KIT and PDGFRA) as critical prognostic factors affecting patient outcomes, indicating that certain mutations
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ischemic stroke can cause depolarized brain waves, termed peri-infarct depolarization (PID). Here, we evaluated whether topiramate, a neuroprotective drug used to treat epilepsy and alleviate migraine, has the potential to reduce PID. We employed a rat model of photothrombotic ischemia that can reliably and reproducibly induce PID and developed a combined electrocorticography-laser speckle contrast imaging (ECoG-LSCI) platform to monitor neuronal activity and cerebral blood flow (CBF) simultaneously.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • In Asia, adjuvant chemotherapy combined with nivolumab post-gastrectomy is being assessed for effectiveness and safety in treating pathological stage III gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction cancer.
  • The ATTRACTION-5 trial involved a randomized, double-blind study across 96 hospitals in East Asia, enrolling patients aged 20-80 with confirmed stage IIIA-C cancer following specific surgeries.
  • Patients were divided into two groups to receive either nivolumab with chemotherapy or a placebo with chemotherapy, with the main focus on measuring relapse-free survival and analyzing safety data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • A study evaluated the effectiveness and safety of a new chemotherapy regimen (SOLAR) combining nab-paclitaxel, oxaliplatin, and S-1/leucovorin for treating upper gastrointestinal (UGI) cancers in patients who haven't received chemotherapy before.
  • The maximal tolerated dose (MTD) for oxaliplatin was found to be 85 mg/m2, with common severe side effects being neutropenia and diarrhea.
  • Preliminary results showed a promising overall response rate of 63.2%, with median progression-free survival of 12.5 months and overall survival of 24.7 months, suggesting further research is warranted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

What Is This Summary About?: This summary describes the results from a phase 2 study called FOENIXCCA2. The study evaluated treatment with futibatinib in people with a rare form of advanced bile duct cancer called intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (or iCCA), where the tumors have changes in the structure of a gene called FGFR2. These changes include FGFR2 gene fusions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: In the preplanned interim analysis of the TOPAZ-1 study, durvalumab plus gemcitabine-cisplatin significantly improved overall survival versus placebo plus gemcitabine-cisplatin in participants with advanced biliary tract cancer. We aimed to report updated overall survival and safety data from TOPAZ-1 with additional follow-up and data maturity beyond the interim analysis.

Methods: TOPAZ-1 was a phase 3, randomised, double-masked, placebo-controlled, global study done at 105 sites in 17 countries.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Despite efficacy of approved FGFR inhibitors, emergence of polyclonal secondary mutations in the FGFR kinase domain leads to acquired resistance. KIN-3248 is a selective, irreversible, orally bioavailable, small-molecule inhibitor of FGFR1-4 that blocks both primary oncogenic and secondary kinase domain resistance FGFR alterations.

Experimental Design: A first-in-human, phase I study of KIN-3248 was conducted in patients with advanced solid tumors harboring FGFR2 and/or FGFR3 gene alterations (NCT05242822).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background/objectives: Liposomal irinotecan plus 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin (nal-IRI + 5-FU/LV) provides survival benefits for metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma (mPDAC) refractory to gemcitabine-based treatment, mainly gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel (GA), in current practice. Gemcitabine plus S-1 (GS) is another commonly administered first-line regimen before nab-paclitaxel reimbursement; however, the efficacy and safety of nal-IRI + 5-FU/LV for mPDAC after failed GS treatment has not been reported and was therefore explored in this study.

Methods: In total, 177 patients with mPDAC received first-line GS or GA treatment, followed by second-line nal-IRI + 5-FU/LV treatment (identified from a multicenter retrospective cohort in Taiwan from 2018 to 2020); 85 and 92 patients were allocated to the GS and GA groups, respectively.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers are some of the main public health threats to the world. Even though surgery, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy are available for their treatments, these approaches provide limited success in reducing mortality, making the identification of additional therapeutic targets mandatory. Chromatin remodeling in cancer has long been studied and related therapeutics are widely used, although less is known about factors with prognostic and therapeutic potential in such areas as gastrointestinal cancers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Perineural invasion and neurogenesis are frequently observed in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and link to poor outcome. However, how neural factors affect PDAC prognosis and the underlying mechanism as well as counteracting therapeutic are still unclear. systematic analysis was performed with PROGgene to identify potential neural factor and its receptor in pancreatic cancer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Cancer susceptibility germline mutations are associated with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). However, the hereditary status of PDAC and its impact on survival is largely unknown in the Asian population.

Methods: Exome sequencing was performed on 527 blood samples from PDAC individuals and analyzed for mutations in 80 oncogenic genes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

RING finger 43 (RNF43), a RING-type E3 ubiquitin ligase, is a key regulator of WNT signaling and is mutated in 6-10% of pancreatic tumors. However, RNF43-mediated effects remain unclear, as only a few in vivo substrates of RNF43 are identified. Here, it is found that RNF43-mutated pancreatic cancer cells exhibit elevated B-RAF/MEK activity and are highly sensitive to MEK inhibitors.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The treatment of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) is multimodal, and chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is a critical component. However, the availability of predictive or prognostic markers in patients with HNSCC is limited. Inflammation is a well-documented factor in cancer, and several parameters have been studied, with the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) being the most promising.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

What Is This Summary About?: This is a summary describing the results of a Phase III study called TOPAZ-1. The study looked at treatment with durvalumab (a type of immunotherapy) and chemotherapy to treat participants with advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC). Advanced BTC is usually diagnosed at late stages of disease, when it cannot be cured by surgery.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Perineural invasion and neurogenesis are frequently observed in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), and they are associated with a poor prognosis. Axon guidance factor semaphorin 3A (SEMA3A) is upregulated in PDAC. However, it remains unclear whether cancer-derived SEMA3A influences nerve innervation and pancreatic tumorigenesis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Absrtact: BACKGROUND: Patients treated with anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (anti-EGFR) will ultimately develop acquired resistance promoted by clonal selection, mainly the emergence of mutations in the MAPK pathway (mostly RAS mutations). Baseline assessment of RAS mutations in the blood of patients correlates well with RAS tumour tissue testing and is currently an alternative option in routine clinical practice to guide first-line therapy. The aim of this study was the prevalence of acquired genomic alterations detected in the auxiliary tool of ctDNA testing and investigated the role of RAS ctDNA status for detecting tumour response and predicting benefit to anti-EGFR therapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Gastrectomy remains the curative option in gastric cancer. However, the growing concern that preoperative waiting jeopardizes survival has not been fully addressed. The present population-based cohort study aimed to clarify the impact of preoperative waiting time (PreWT).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Upfront resection (UR) followed by adjuvant chemotherapy remains the standard treatment for resectable pancreatic cancer. There is increasing evidence suggesting favourable outcomes toward neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) followed by surgery.

Methods: All clinical staging with resectable pancreatic cancer patients treated at a tertiary medical centre from 2013 to 2020 were identified.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Personalized genetic profiling has focused on improving treatment efficacy and predicting risk stratification by identifying mutated genes and selecting targeted agents according to genetic testing. Therefore, we evaluated the role of genetic profiling and tumor mutation burden (TMB) using next-generation sequencing in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC). The relapse mutation signature (RMS) and chromatin remodeling mutation signature (CRMS) were explored to predict the risk of relapse in patients with HNSC treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) with platinum-based chemotherapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The predictive value of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) for adjuvant chemo(radiation) therapy of resected pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is undefined.

Methods And Materials: We analyzed CA19-9 levels in patients with resected PDAC in a prospective randomized trial of adjuvant chemotherapy with or without additional chemoradiation therapy (CRT). Patients with postoperative CA19-9 ≤92.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Head and neck cancers are a major global health concern, with limited predictive biomarkers and unsatisfactory survival rates despite advances in treatment.
  • Telomerase reactivation plays a crucial role in cancer development, and specific mutations in the TERT promoter are frequently observed in head and neck cancers, particularly in aggressive types like HPV-negative tumors.
  • Although several therapies targeting telomerase have been created, only a few have progressed to clinical trials, highlighting the need for more effective treatment options for patients with these mutations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The nomogram derived from the pivotal phase III NAPOLI-1 study demonstrated a significant ability to predict median overall survival (OS) in gemcitabine-refractory metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) treated with liposomal irinotecan plus fluorouracil and leucovorin (nal-IRI+5-FU/LV). However, the NAPOLI-1 nomogram has not been validated in a real-world setting and therefore the applicability of the NAPOLI-1 nomogram in daily practice remains unknown. This study aims to evaluate the NAPOLI-1 nomogram in a multicenter real-world cohort.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF