Publications by authors named "Otto Hemminki"

Purpose: Patients with Ta low-grade (LG) NMIBC rarely develop metastases or die of it. Long-term data are scant and length of follow-up poorly defined.

Materials And Methods: This retrospective study included 521 patients diagnosed with primary TaLG NMIBC (n = 491) or papillary urothelial neoplasm of low malignant potential (n = 30) from 1989 to 2019 at an academic center.

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Article Synopsis
  • Early detection of hereditary urological cancers, such as prostate, bladder, renal, and testicular carcinomas, can significantly impact patient diagnosis and treatment decisions, potentially affecting both them and their families.
  • Routine screening for family cancer histories should be standard practice in clinical settings to identify those at risk of hereditary cancers.
  • Patients who may be at risk have the option to be referred for genetic counseling or to undergo genetic testing after discussing it with their urologist.
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Esophageal cancer (EC) and gastric cancer (GC) are fatal cancers with a relatively late age of onset. Age is a negative risk factor for survival in many cancers and our aim was to analyze age-specific survival in EC and GC using the recently updated NORDCAN database. NORDCAN data originate from the Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish nationwide cancer registries covering years 1972 through 2021 inviting for comparison of 50-year survival trends between the countries.

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T cell-focused cancer immunotherapy including checkpoint inhibitors and cell therapies has been rapidly evolving over the past decade. Nevertheless, there remains a major unmet medical need in oncology generally and immuno-oncology specifically. We have constructed an oncolytic adenovirus, Ad5/3-E2F-d24-aMUC1aCD3-IL-2 (TILT-322), which is armed with a human aMUC1aCD3 T cell engager and IL-2.

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Backround: We wanted to characterize conditional survival in prostate cancer (PC) in Sweden around and after 2005 when the vast increase in incidence due to the opportunistic testing for prostate specific antigen (PSA) culminated. We hypothesize that analyzing survival data during that time period may help interpret survival trends. We focus on stage-specific analysis using conditional survival in order to define the periods when deaths most commonly occurred.

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Background: Cancers of the head and neck (HN) are heterogeneous tumors with incidence rates varying globally. In Northern Europe oral and oropharyngeal cancers are the most common individual types. Survival for HN varies by individual tumor type but for most of them survival trends are not well known over extended periods of time.

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Objectives: To assess whether office-based fulguration (OF) under local anaesthesia for small, recurrent, pathological Ta low-grade (LG) non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) is an effective alternative to transurethral resection of bladder tumour (TURBT), avoiding the costs and risks of procedure, and anesthesia.

Patients And Methods: Of 521 patients with primary TaLG NMIBC, this retrospective study included 270 patients who underwent OF during follow-up for recurrent, small, papillary LG-appearing tumours at a university centre (University Health Network, University of Toronto, Canada). We assessed the cumulative incidence of cancer-specific mortality (CSM) and disease progression (to MIBC or metastases), as well as possible direct cost savings.

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Article Synopsis
  • Survival studies are crucial for cancer control, yet there's a lack of long-term data on various cancers, including prostate, testicular, and penile cancers from reliable cancer registries in the Nordic countries.
  • An analysis of survival data from the NORDCAN database over 50 years revealed significant improvements in 5-year survival rates for testicular cancer, reaching 90% in certain countries, while prostate cancer reached similar figures later, but penile cancer struggled to achieve the same milestone.
  • The findings highlight the need for focused attention on early mortality for testicular cancer, late mortality for prostate cancer, and increased public awareness for penile cancer due to potential delays in diagnosis, especially since patients in Finland showed double the risk of dying compared to their
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Purpose: Sarcomas are rare cancers with many subtypes in soft tissues, bone and cartilage. International survival trends in these cancers are not well known. We present 50-year survival trends for soft tissue sarcoma (STS) and bone sarcoma (BS) in Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Norway (NO) and Sweden (SE).

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  • The study analyzes thyroid cancer survival rates in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden over 50 years (1971-2020), looking at changes in incidence and mortality alongside survival data.
  • It found that while 1-year survival rates were initially lower than 5-year rates, they improved over time, with current survival rates reaching approximately 92.7% for men and 95.6% for women at 1 year, and 88.0% for men and 93.7% for women at 5 years.
  • The research indicates an overall increase in thyroid cancer survival, particularly in Denmark, and emphasizes the need for better early diagnosis and treatment of aggressive tumors to enhance 1-year survival rates.
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Background: The incidence of prostate cancer (PC) increased vastly as a result of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing. Survival in PC improved in the PSA-testing era, but changes in clinical presentation have hampered the interpretation of the underlying causes.

Design: We analyzed survival trends in PC using data from the NORDCAN database for Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Norway (NO) and Sweden (SE) by analyzing 1-, 5- and 10-year relative survival and conditional relative survival over the course of 50 years (1971-2020).

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Lung cancer remains among the most difficult-to-treat malignancies and is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. The introduction of targeted therapies and checkpoint inhibitors has improved treatment outcomes; however, most patients with advanced-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) eventually fail these therapies. Therefore, there is a major unmet clinical need for checkpoint refractory/resistant NSCLC.

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Background: Female cancers cover common breast cancers, relatively common endometrial, ovarian, and cervical cancers and rare vulvar cancer. Survival in these cancers is known to be relatively good compared to all cancers but long-term studies for these cancers are rare, and to fill the gap, here, we generate survival data through 50 years.

Materials And Methods: We applied generalized additive models to data from the NORDCAN database and analyzed 1- and 5-year relative survival for these cancers in Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Norway (NO), and Sweden (SE) over half a century (1971-2020).

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Kidney and bladder cancers share etiology and relatively good recent survival, but long-term studies are rare. We analyzed survival for these cancers in Denmark, Finland, Norway (NO), and Sweden (SE) over a 50-year period (1971-2020). Relative 1- and 5-year survival data were obtained from the NORDCAN database, and we additionally calculated conditional 5/1-year survival.

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Objective: Lung cancer is often diagnosed at an advanced stage and survival has been poor, although long-term studies have been rare. We analyzed data on survival in lung cancer from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden over a 50-year period (1971-2020).

Methods: Relative 1- and 5-year survival data were obtained from the NORDCAN database for 1971-2020.

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Objectives: Survival in melanoma has been increasing and the most recent interest is to observe the population-level impact of novel targeted therapies and immunotherapy. We analysed survival in melanoma from Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Norway (NO) and Sweden (SE) over a 50-years period (1971-2020).

Methods: Relative 1-5/1- and 5-year survival data were obtained from the NORDCAN database for the years 1971-2020.

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Background: Gastric cancer (GC) and esophageal cancer (EC) are among the most fatal cancers and improving survival in them is a major clinical challenge. Nordic cancer data were recently released up to year 2019. These data are relevant for long-term survival analysis as they originate from high-quality national cancer registries from countries with practically free access to health care, thus documenting 'real-world' experience for entire populations.

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Survival studies are an important indicator of the success of cancer control. We analyzed the 5-year relative survival in 23 solid cancers in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden over a 50-year period (1970-2019) at the NORDCAN database accessed from the International Agency for Research on Cancer website. We plotted survival curves in 5-year periods and showed 5-year periodic survival.

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Background & Aims: Liver cancer (LC) and pancreatic cancer (PC) are often diagnosed at an advanced stage resulting in high mortality. High-quality survival data are rarely available for trend analyses over a long period.

Methods: The Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish cancer data were accessed at the NORDCAN database.

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Cytokines have proven to be effective for cancer therapy, however whilst low-dose monotherapy with cytokines provides limited therapeutic benefit, high-dose treatment can lead to a number of adverse events. Interleukin 7 has shown promising results in clinical trials, but anti-cancer effect was limited, in part due to a low concentration of the cytokine within the tumor. We hypothesized that arming an oncolytic adenovirus with Interleukin 7, enabling high expression localized to the tumor microenvironment, would overcome systemic delivery issues and improve therapeutic efficacy.

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Global survival studies have shown favorable development in most cancers but few studies have considered laryngeal cancer, particularly over extended periods or in populations for which medical care is essentially free of charge. We analyzed laryngeal and lung cancer incidence and survival in Finland (FI) and Sweden (SE) over a 50-year period (1970-2019) using data and statistical tools from the Nordcan database. Laryngeal cancer reached an incidence maximum in FI men in 1965, which in SE men occurred over 10 years later and peaking at 42% of the FI maximum.

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We analyzed long-term incidence trends in liver cancer (including hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma) with an aim to interpret the changes in terms of known risk factors and hypothesize that historical exposure to Thorotrast, a radiographic contrast medium emitting alpha particles, has changed population rates. The NORDCAN database was used to collect cancer registry data from Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Norway (NO) and Sweden (SE), which we used from 1953 (DK, FI and NO) and 1960 (SE) through 2019. Thorotrast, which caused a 100-fold risk of liver cancer was used in DK and SE, and probably also in FI between 1930 and 1950, but not in NO.

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