Assessment of enthesopathy in conventional pelvis radiography: Another tool for spondyloarthritis diagnosis beyond sacroiliitis.

Introduction/objectives: Enthesitis is a cardinal feature of spondylarthritis (SpA), and the pelvis is a common site of enthesitis. This study aimed to establish the association between pelvic enthesis involvement on pelvic X-ray and SpA diagnosis through a radiographic enthesis index (REI) and to assess the reliability and accuracy of this REI.

Materials And Methods: The participants were SpA patients and a control group composed of patients with chronic lumbar pain without SpA.

Efficacy of EGFR Inhibitors and NSAIDs Against Basal Bladder Cancers in a Rat Model: Daily vs. Weekly Dosing, Combining EGFR Inhibitors with Naproxen, and Effects on RNA Expression.

Background: There are few effective treatments specifically aimed at basal bladder cancer.

Objective: Female F344 rats administered N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl)-nitrosamine (OH-BBN) develop large invasive bladder cancers. We determined the efficacy of daily vs weekly dosing of EGFR inhibitors, determined the efficacy of naproxen combined with an EGFR inhibitor, and performed RNA analysis of bladder tumors treated for 5 days with EGFR inhibitors or NO-naproxen to identify pharmacodynamic biomarkers.

Use of Biomarker Modulation in Normal Mammary Epithelium as a Correlate for Efficacy of Chemopreventive Agents Against Chemically Induced Cancers.

In both estrogen receptor/progesterone receptor-positive (ER/PR) human breast cancer and in ER/PR cancers in the methylnitrosourea (MNU)-induced rat model, short-term modulation of proliferation in early cancers predicts preventive/therapeutic efficacy. We determined the effects of known effective/ineffective chemopreventive agents on proliferative index (PI) in both rat mammary epithelium and small cancers. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with MNU at 50 days of age.

Combination of Erlotinib and Naproxen Employing Pulsatile or Intermittent Dosing Profoundly Inhibits Urinary Bladder Cancers.

Daily dosing of either NSAIDs or EGFR inhibitors has been shown to prevent bladder cancer development in a N-butyl-(4-hydroxybutyl)nitrosamine (OH-BBN)-induced rat model. However, these inhibitors cause gastrointestinal ulceration and acneiform rash, respectively, limiting their continuous use in a clinical prevention setting. We studied chemopreventive efficacy of pulsatile dosing of EGFR inhibitor erlotinib (42 mg/kg BW, once/week) combined with intermittent or continuous low doses of the NSAID naproxen (30 mg/kg BW/day, 3 weeks on/off or 128 ppm daily in diet) in the OH-BBN induced rat bladder cancer model.

Evaluation of the STAT3 inhibitor GLG‑302 for the prevention of estrogen receptor‑positive and ‑negative mammary cancers.

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) plays a key role in the transformation of normal cells to cancerous cells. Although inhibitors of STAT3 have been shown to suppress the growth of multiple cancer types in vitro and in vivo, such agents are of particular interest for the prevention of breast cancer, which affects over 200,000 women and claims more than 40,000 lives in the United States each year. In the present study, we employed the MMTV/Neu transgenic mouse model, which develops estrogen receptor (ER)‑negative, Neu‑overexpressing tumors, and the Sprague‑Dawley (SD) rat model, which develops ER‑positive tumors upon exposure to the carcinogen 7,12‑dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA), to test the efficacy of the STAT3 inhibitor GLG‑302 in the prevention of mammary cancer.