Publications by authors named "Riccardo Di Fiore"

Introduction: Ovarian cancer remains a leading cause of mortality among gynecological malignancies, often diagnosed at advanced stages due to nonspecific symptoms and limited screening tools. Standard treatment, including cytoreductive surgery and chemotherapy, can cause fatigue, physical dysfunction, and psychological distress, impacting quality of life. Exercise interventions have shown potential to mitigate these effects, but inconsistent methodologies in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) limit reliable conclusions and clinical integration.

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Ovarian and cervical cancers are the two most frequent kind of gynaecological cancers (GCs). In spite of advances in prevention, screening and treatment, cervical cancer still leads to an increased morbidity and mortality worldwide. Ovarian cancer is often detected at a late stage, which significantly reduces the effectiveness of available treatments.

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Gynaecological cancers (GCs) comprise a group of cancers that originate in the female reproductive organs. Each GC is unique, with different signs and symptoms, risk factors and therapeutic strategies. Worldwide, the majority of GCs are still associated with high mortality rates, especially ovarian, due to difficulty in early detection.

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: Introduced in the latest BCLC 2022, endovascular trans-arterial radioembolization (TARE) has an important role in the treatment of unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) as a "bridge" or "downstaging" of disease. The evolution of TARE technology allows a more flexible and personalized target treatment, based on the anatomy and vascular characteristics of each HCC. The flex-dose delivery program is part of this perspective, which allows us to adjust the dose and its radio-embolizing power in relation to the size and type of cancer and to split the therapeutic dose of Y90 in different injections (split-bolus).

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Objectives: We aimed to investigate the overall survival (OS) of young women with endometrial cancer (EC) in Bulgaria and the impact of histological type on survival.

Material And Methods: This is a population-wide retrospective study of patients with EC (≤ 40 years at diagnosis) registered at Bulgarian National Cancer Registry (BNCR) between 1993 and 2020. Patients were re-classified according to the 8th edition of the TNM classification.

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The F-Box and WD Repeat Domain Containing 7 (FBXW7) protein has been shown to regulate cellular growth and act as a tumor suppressor. This protein, also known as FBW7, hCDC4, SEL10 or hAGO, is encoded by the gene FBXW7. It is a crucial component of the Skp1-Cullin1-F-box (SCF) complex, which is a ubiquitin ligase.

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Unlabelled: Eastern Europe continues to have the highest rates of cancer of the uterine cervix (CUC) and human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in Europe.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate CUC trends in Bulgaria in the context of a lack of a population-based screening program and a demographic crisis.

Methodology: This was a retrospective study of 7861 CUC patients who were registered in the Bulgarian National Cancer Registry (BNCR) between 2013 and 2020 and followed up with until March 2022.

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Outer space is an extremely hostile environment for human life, with ionizing radiation from galactic cosmic rays and microgravity posing the most significant hazards to the health of astronauts. Spaceflight has also been shown to have an impact on established cancer hallmarks, possibly increasing carcinogenic risk. Terrestrially, women have a higher incidence of radiation-induced cancers, largely driven by lung, thyroid, breast, and ovarian cancers, and therefore, historically, they have been permitted to spend significantly less time in space than men.

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Cervical cancer (CC) is the fourth most common type of gynecological malignancy affecting females worldwide. Most CC cases are linked to infection with high-risk human papillomaviruses (HPV). There has been a significant decrease in the incidence and death rate of CC due to effective cervical Pap smear screening and administration of vaccines.

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Epithelioid trophoblastic tumours are rare neoplasms showing differentiation towards the chorion leave-type intermediate cytotrophoblast, with only a handful of cases being reported in the literature. These tumours are slow-growing and are typically confined to the uterus for extended periods of time. While the pathogenesis is unclear, they are thought to arise from a remnant intermediate trophoblast originating from prior normal pregnancies or, less frequently, gestational trophoblastic tumours.

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Rare ovarian cancers are ovarian cancers with an annual incidence of less than 6 cases per 100,000 women. They generally have a poor prognosis due to being delayed diagnosis and treatment. Exploration of molecular mechanisms in these cancers has been challenging due to their rarity and research efforts being fragmented across the world.

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Article Synopsis
  • Rare ovarian cancers (ROCs) have a low incidence rate, affecting fewer than 6 women per 100,000 annually, which can delay diagnosis and worsen prognosis.
  • The tumors are linked to changes in gene and protein expression that disrupt normal cellular processes, leading to dysregulation associated with cancer.
  • This review focuses on the role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in ovarian cancer, particularly their mechanisms of action and influence on ROCs, highlighting the need for further research in this underexplored area.
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Gynecological cancers (GCs) are currently among the major threats to female health. Moreover, there are different histologic subtypes of these cancers, which are defined as 'rare' due to an annual incidence of <6 per 100,000 women. The majority of these tend to be associated with a poor prognosis.

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Choriocarcinoma (CC), a subtype of trophoblastic disease, is a rare and highly aggressive neoplasm. There are two main CC subtypes: gestational and non-gestational, (so called when it develops as a component of a germ cell tumor or is related to a somatic mutation of a poorly differentiated carcinoma), each with very diverse biological activity. A therapeutic approach is highly effective in patients with early-stage CC.

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Introduction: Historically, the incidence rate of cervical cancer (CC) in Eastern Europe and particularly in Bulgaria has constantly been higher than that in the other European countries. Adenosquamous carcinoma (ASC) is a rare histological subtype of CC with incidence rate of less than 6 per 100,000. We aimed to analyze the epidemiology and prognosis of all Bulgarian patients with ASC, registered at the Bulgarian National Cancer Registry (BNCR), and to compare patients' characteristics and outcomes with those of patients, treated at a large specialized institution - the Department of Gynecologic Oncology, University Hospital in Pleven, Bulgaria.

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Gynecological cancers pose an important public health issue, with a high incidence among women of all ages. Gynecological cancers such as malignant germ-cell tumors, sex-cord-stromal tumors, uterine sarcomas and carcinosarcomas, gestational trophoblastic neoplasia, vulvar carcinoma and melanoma of the female genital tract, are defined as rare with an annual incidence of <6 per 100,000 women. Rare gynecological cancers (RGCs) are associated with poor prognosis, and given the low incidence of each entity, there is the risk of delayed diagnosis due to clinical inexperience and limited therapeutic options.

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More than 50% of all gynecologic tumors can be classified as rare (defined as an incidence of ≤6 per 100,000 women) and usually have a poor prognosis owing to delayed diagnosis and treatment. In contrast to almost all other common solid tumors, the treatment of rare gynecologic tumors (RGT) is often based on expert opinion, retrospective studies, or extrapolation from other tumor sites with similar histology, leading to difficulty in developing guidelines for clinical practice. Currently, gynecologic cancer research, due to distinct scientific and technological challenges, is lagging behind.

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Acute myeloid leukemia is the most common form of acute leukemia in adults, constituting about 80% of cases. Although remarkable progress has been made in the therapeutic scenario for patients with acute myeloid leukemia, research and development of new and effective anticancer agents to improve patient outcome and minimize toxicity is needed. In this study, the antitumor activity of axolotl (AXO) crude extract was assessed in vitro on the human acute myeloid leukemia HL-60 cell line.

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Current anti-cancer drugs can cause many undesirable side effects to patients. Thus, there is a constant need to develop alternative therapeutic drugs. Bioactive compounds derived from natural products including animals, plants and microorganisms are being actively studied as sources for anticancer treatments.

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The present study shows that nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2) and miR-29b-1-5p are two opposite forces which could regulate the fate of MDA-MB-231 cells, the most studied triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell line. We show that NRF2 activation stimulates cell growth and markedly reduces reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, whereas miR-29b-1-5p overexpression increases ROS generation and reduces cell proliferation. Moreover, NRF2 downregulates miR-29b-1-5p expression, whereas miR-29b-1-5p overexpression decreases p-AKT and p-NRF2.

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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a form of BC characterized by high aggressiveness and therapy resistance probably determined by cancer stem cells. MCL1 is an antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family member that could limit the efficacy of anticancer agents as recombinant human tumor necrosis factor related apoptosis-inducing ligand (rh-TRAIL). Here, we investigated MCL1 expression in TNBC tissues and cells.

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The Bcl-2 family, which plays important roles in controlling cancer development, is divided into antiapoptotic and proapoptotic members. The change in the balance between these members governs the life and death of the cells. Mcl-1 is an antiapoptotic member of this family and its distribution in normal and cancerous tissues strongly differs from that of Bcl-2.

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Triple-negative breast cancer is a group of aggressive cancers with poor prognosis owing to chemoresistance, recurrence and metastasis. New strategies are required that could reduce chemoresistance and increases the effectiveness of chemotherapy. The results presented in this paper, showing that parthenolide (PN) prevents drug resistance in MDA-MB231 cells, represent a contribution to one of these possible strategies.

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MiR-29 family dysregulation occurs in various cancers including breast cancers. We investigated miR-29b-1 functional role in human triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) the most aggressive breast cancer subtype. We found that miR-29b-1-5p was downregulated in human TNBC tissues and cell lines.

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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a clinically aggressive form of breast cancer that is unresponsive to endocrine agents or trastuzumab. TNBC accounts for ~10-20% of all breast cancer cases and represents the form with the poorest prognosis. Patients with TNBC are at higher risk of early recurrence, mainly in the lungs, brain and soft tissue, therefore, there is an urgent need for new therapies.

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