Publications by authors named "Samantha Vasselman"
Purpose: Deleterious germline variants in certain DNA repair genes are risk factors for developing aggressive prostate cancer. The objective was to quantify their prognostic impact after prostate cancer diagnosis.
Experimental Design: Men with prostate cancer, predominantly of European ancestry, were included from four cohorts with long-term follow-up.
Purpose: Patients with microsatellite instability-high/mismatch repair-deficient (MSI-H/dMMR) and high tumor mutational burden (TMB-H) prostate cancers are candidates for pembrolizumab. We define the genomic features, clinical course, and response to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) in patients with MSI-H/dMMR and TMB-H prostate cancers without MSI [TMB-H/microsatellite stable (MSS)].
Experimental Design: We sequenced 3,244 tumors from 2,257 patients with prostate cancer.
Background: Routine clinical data from clinical charts are indispensable for retrospective and prospective observational studies and clinical trials. Their reproducibility is often not assessed. We developed a prostate cancer-specific database for clinical annotations and evaluated data reproducibility.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Black men die from prostate cancer twice as often as White men, a disparity likely due to inherited genetics, modifiable cancer risk factors, and healthcare access. It is incompletely understood how and why tumor genomes differ by self-reported race and genetic ancestry.
Experimental Design: Among 2,069 men with prostate cancer (1,841 self-reported White, 63 Asian, 165 Black) with access to clinical-grade sequencing at the same cancer center, prevalence of tumor and germline alterations was assessed in cancer driver genes reported to have different alteration prevalence by race.
Article Synopsis
- - The study investigates the genomic factors related to clinical outcomes in metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer, aiming to clarify how these factors influence disease progression and treatment responses.
- - In a cohort of 424 patients, findings showed that high-volume disease (≥4 bone or visceral metastases) corresponded to increased rates of castration resistance and mortality, with specific genomic alterations being more prevalent in these cases.
- - Key pathways, such as NOTCH and cell cycle, were highlighted as significant in high-volume disease, suggesting that understanding these genomic features can improve molecular classification and guide treatment decisions for affected patients.