Quality of Life in Patients with Malignant Wounds Treated at a Wound Care Clinic.

Background: Malignant wounds can present in up to 14.5% of patients with advanced cancer, significantly reducing quality of life (QoL). Management of malignant wounds is generally palliative, with the goal of improving or maintaining QoL.

First-in-Human Evaluation of Site-Specifically Labeled Zr-Pertuzumab in Patients with HER2-Positive Breast Cancer.

Radioimmunoconjugates targeting human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) have shown potential to noninvasively visualize HER2-positive tumors. However, the stochastic approach that has been traditionally used to radiolabel these antibodies yields poorly defined and heterogeneous products with suboptimal in vivo performance. Here, we describe a first-in-human PET study on patients with HER2-positive breast cancer evaluating the safety, biodistribution, and dosimetry of Zr-site-specific (ss)-pertuzumab PET, a site-specifically labeled radioimmunoconjugate designed to circumvent the limitations of random stochastic lysine labeling.

Adjuvant enzalutamide for the treatment of early-stage androgen-receptor positive, triple-negative breast cancer: a feasibility study.

Purpose: Chemotherapy with or without immunotherapy remains the mainstay of treatment for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). A subset of TNBCs express the androgen receptor (AR), representing a potential new therapeutic target. This study assessed the feasibility of adjuvant enzalutamide, an AR antagonist, in early-stage, AR-positive (AR +) TNBC.

Immunomodulatory Activity of a Colony-stimulating Factor-1 Receptor Inhibitor in Patients with Advanced Refractory Breast or Prostate Cancer: A Phase I Study.

Purpose: Tumor-associated macrophages correlate with increased invasiveness, growth, and immunosuppression. Activation of the colony-stimulating factor-1 receptor (CSF-1R) results in proliferation, differentiation, and migration of monocytes/macrophages. This phase I study evaluated the immunologic and clinical activity, and safety profile of CSF-1R inhibition with the mAb LY3022855.

Overview of Breast Cancer Therapy.

Breast cancer treatment is multidisciplinary. Most women with early stage breast cancer are candidates for breast-conserving surgery with radiotherapy or mastectomy. The risk of local recurrence and the chance of survival does not differ with these approaches.

Investigation of the correlation of serum IL-31 with severity of dermatitis in an experimental model of canine atopic dermatitis using beagle dogs.

Background: IL-31 is a cytokine that is believed to play an important role in atopic dermatitis (AD). IL-31 levels positively correlate with disease severity in children with AD. Currently, there is no study that has investigated such a correlation in atopic dogs.

Agonistic character displacement in social cognition of advertisement signals.

Interspecific aggression between sibling species may enhance discrimination of competitors when recognition errors are costly, but proximate mechanisms mediating increased discriminative ability are unclear. We studied behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying responses to conspecific and heterospecific vocalizations in Alston's singing mouse (Scotinomys teguina), a species in which males sing to repel rivals. We performed playback experiments using males in allopatry and sympatry with a dominant heterospecific (Scotinomys xerampelinus) and examined song-evoked induction of egr-1 in the auditory system to examine how neural tuning modulates species-specific responses.

Impact of Time from Completion of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy to Surgery on Survival Outcomes in Breast Cancer Patients.

Background: No studies have examined the impact of the interval from conclusion of neoadjuvant chemotherapy to surgery in breast cancer patients. This study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between time interval from neoadjuvant chemotherapy to surgery and survival outcomes.

Methods: Breast cancer patients diagnosed with stage I-III disease who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy June 1995 to April 2007 were identified.

High incidence of germline BRCA mutation in patients with ER low-positive/PR low-positive/HER-2 neu negative tumors.

Background: The 2015 National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines recommend that genetic counseling and germline BRCA mutation testing be offered to women under age 60 with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). As a result of the 2010 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)/College of American Pathologists (CAP) guidelines for breast cancer, patients with breast cancers that are estrogen receptor (ER) or progesterone receptor (PR) low-positive (1%-9% on immunohistochemistry) are no longer strictly considered to have TNBC and may not be referred for genetic counseling. However, the incidence of BRCA mutation in patients with hormone receptor (HR) low-positive breast cancers remains unknown, and current ASCO/CAP guidelines may result in undertesting for BRCA mutations.

DNA Methylation in Basal Metazoans: Insights from Ctenophores.

Epigenetic modifications control gene expression without altering the primary DNA sequence. However, little is known about DNA methylation in invertebrates and its evolution. Here, we characterize two types of genomic DNA methylation in ctenophores, 5-methyl cytosine (5-mC) and the unconventional form of methylation 6-methyl adenine (6-mA).

Parallel Evolution and Lineage-Specific Expansion of RNA Editing in Ctenophores.

RNA editing is a process of targeted alterations of nucleotides in all types of RNA molecules (e.g., rRNA, tRNA, mRNA, and miRNA).

Pro1170 Ala polymorphism in HER2-neu is associated with risk of trastuzumab cardiotoxicity.

Background: Variations in single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been associated with enhanced drug efficacy and toxicity in cancer therapy. SNP variations in the ErbB2 gene have been identified that alter the protein sequence of the HER2-neu protein, but how these polymorphisms affect prognosis and response to HER2 targeted therapy is unknown. We examined eleven ErbB2 SNPs that alter the HER2-neu amino acid sequence to determine whether any of these particular polymorphisms were associated with increased trastuzumab cardiotoxicity in a case-control study.

The ctenophore genome and the evolutionary origins of neural systems.

The origins of neural systems remain unresolved. In contrast to other basal metazoans, ctenophores (comb jellies) have both complex nervous and mesoderm-derived muscular systems. These holoplanktonic predators also have sophisticated ciliated locomotion, behaviour and distinct development.

Patterns of care for non-small-cell lung cancer at an academic institution affiliated with a national cancer institute-designated cancer center.

Purpose: Evidence-based treatment guidelines for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) exist to improve the quality of care for patients with this disease. However, how often evidence-based decisions are used for care of NSCLC is poorly understood.

Patients And Methods: We examined patterns of care and rate of adherence to evidence-based guidelines for 185 new NSCLC patients seen between 2007 and 2009.