Publications by authors named "R S Svatek"

Unlabelled: Despite its immunogenic nature, bladder cancer (BCa) responds sub-optimally to FDA-approved immunotherapy.

Background/objectives: We have previously shown that natural killer (NK) cells are major contributors to overall patient survival in BCa. In our efforts to identify clinically approved agents that enhance NK cell activation, we identified eribulin, a microtubule destabilizer primarily used in breast cancer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Whether extended lymphadenectomy is associated with improved disease-free and overall survival, as compared with standard lymphadenectomy, among patients with localized muscle-invasive bladder cancer undergoing radical cystectomy is unclear.

Methods: We randomly assigned, in a 1:1 ratio, patients with localized muscle-invasive bladder cancer of clinical stage T2 (confined to muscle) to T4a (invading adjacent organs) with two or fewer positive nodes (N0, N1, or N2) to undergo bilateral standard lymphadenectomy (dissection of lymph nodes on both sides of the pelvis) or extended lymphadenectomy involving removal of common iliac, presciatic, and presacral nodes. Randomization was performed during surgery and stratified according to the receipt and type of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, tumor stage (T2 vs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to evaluate a genomic classifier (GC) to identify a subgroup of bladder cancer patients with a favorable prognosis based on long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) profiles following radical cystectomy (RC).
  • Researchers analyzed tumor samples from 226 patients and classified them into subtypes, with a focus on overall survival and cancer-specific mortality as key outcomes.
  • Results indicated that patients with the luminal favorable subtype had significantly better survival rates and lower risks of cancer progression compared to others, supporting the GC's effectiveness in assessing tumor aggressiveness.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Aside from the canonical role of PDL1 as a tumour surface-expressed immune checkpoint molecule, tumour-intrinsic PDL1 signals regulate non-canonical immunopathological pathways mediating treatment resistance whose significance, mechanisms, and therapeutic targeting remain incompletely understood. Recent reports implicate tumour-intrinsic PDL1 signals in the DNA damage response (DDR), including promoting homologous recombination DNA damage repair and mRNA stability of DDR proteins, but many mechanistic details remain undefined.

Methods: We genetically depleted PDL1 from transplantable mouse and human cancer cell lines to understand consequences of tumour-intrinsic PDL1 signals in the DNA damage response.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bladder cancer (BCa) is a prevalent urogenital malignancy, characterized by a myriad of genetic and environmental risk factors that drive its progression. Approximately 75% of bladder tumors are non-muscle-invasive at diagnosis. For such cases, bladder preservation is often feasible with intravesical chemotherapy or immunotherapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF