Publications by authors named "Lia Head"

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare orphan disease with a dismal prognosis. Surgery remains the first-line treatment, but most patients eventually develop metastatic disease. Mitotane is often used with chemotherapy with modest success.

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Context: Although the development of immune checkpoint inhibitors has transformed treatment strategies of several human malignancies, research models to study immunotherapy in adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) are lacking.

Objective: To explore the effect of anti-PD1 immunotherapy on the alteration of the immune milieu in ACC in a newly generated preclinical model and correlate with the response of the matched patient.

Design, Setting, And Intervention: To characterize the CU-ACC2-M2B patient-derived xenograft in a humanized mouse model, evaluate the effect of a PD-1 inhibitor therapy, and compare it with the CU-ACC2 patient with metastatic disease.

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Introduction: Antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) represent a developing class of anticancer therapeutics which are designed to selectively deliver a cytotoxic payload to tumors, while limiting systemic toxicity to healthy tissues. There are several ADCs which are currently in various stages of clinical development for the treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies.

Areas Covered: We discuss the biologic rationale and review the clinical experience with ADCs in the treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies, summarizing the pre-clinical and phase I/II clinical trial data that have been completed or are ongoing.

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