Publications by authors named "R B Surana"
Article Synopsis
- Due to decreasing donor funding for HIV programs in low- and middle-income countries, efforts are being made to integrate HIV prevention into public health systems to ensure long-term sustainability, particularly in Zambia's voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) program.
- A framework was created to explore how individual decision-makers within the government may create barriers in shifting funding support from NGOs to government structures, through interviews with key stakeholders in the Ministry of Health and other involved parties.
- The study identified three key decision-making phases for the transition to a sustainable VMMC program: developing a new funding strategy, creating policies for infant and adolescent male circumcision, and finding efficient implementation models, highlighting the behavioral dynamics that impede effective
Purpose: Transcriptional profiling of pancreatic cancers has defined two main transcriptional subtypes: classical and basal. Initial data suggest shorter survival for patients with basal tumors and differing treatment sensitivity to FOLFIRINOX and gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel by transcriptional subtype.
Experimental Design: We examined 8,743 patients with RNA sequencing from pancreatic cancers performed at Caris Life Sciences.
Blockade of IL1β and PD1 with Combination Chemotherapy Reduces Systemic Myeloid Suppression in Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer with Heterogeneous Effects in the Tumor.
Cancer Immunol Res
September 2024
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates the effects of blocking IL1β in combination with PD1 blockade and chemotherapy on myeloid immunosuppression and T-cell responses in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.
- Results showed a slight increase in activated CD8+ T cells and a reduction in myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) in the blood of trial patients compared to those receiving standard chemotherapy.
- However, changes in the tumor microenvironment were minimal, suggesting that larger studies are needed to fully understand the impacts of these treatments on tumor immunity.
Article Synopsis
- Some pancreatic cancers (about 8-10%) don't have a common mutation called KRAS, which makes them different from most cases.
- In a study of 795 pancreatic cancer patients, 73 were found to have KRAS wild-type (normal) cancer, and many had other mutations that could be targeted for treatment.
- The research shows that patients with this type of cancer are generally younger and may respond well to specific therapies, especially if they have certain genetic changes.
Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a lethal malignancy for which multiagent chemotherapy is the mainstay of treatment resulting in limited survival and symptomatic benefit. Treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) has proven effective in a growing number of solid tumors but has yet to show clinical benefit in patients with PDAC. Given the growing number of ICI-based clinical trials in development for patients with PDAC and lack of clinical benefit thus far with ICI-based therapies in these patients, we sought to (1) determine the outcomes of patients with PDAC treated with ICI-based therapies as part of an early phase clinical trial, (2) validate the utility of established prognostic scoring systems, and (3) identify novel prognostic factors in an attempt to better identify patients that would benefit from enrollment onto an ICI-based early phase clinical trial.
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