Status and prognostic value of immunological biomarkers of breast cancer.

The immune response to cancer serves an important role in disease progression and patient prognosis. For triple-negative breast cancer showing aggressive behavior, immunotherapy has a good efficacy because of the potent immunogenicity of this type of cancer. However, the dominant subtype, luminal human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2)-negative breast cancer, is less immunogenic.

Candidate biomarkers predictive of anthracycline and taxane efficacy against breast cancer.

Background: Since breast cancer shows diversity in clinical behaviors, a standard therapy does not always lead to favorable outcomes.

Materials And Methods: The expression statuses of candidate markers, including topoisomerase-II alpha (TOP2A), beta-tubulin (B-tub), and tissue inhibitor of metalloprotease-1 (TIMP-1), were immunohistochemically evaluated in 70 breast cancer tissues from 68 patients with advanced breast cancers receiving chemotherapy.

Results: The response rates to anthracycline and taxane were 70.

Indication of metronomic chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer: Clinical outcomes and responsive subtypes.

The survival of patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) has not improved, despite recent advances in therapeutic strategies. This is mainly due to the fact that cytotoxic agents cannot be administered over a long period, even if they exhibit favorable activity, due to treatment-related side effects or acquisition of tumor resistance to the administered agents. Thus, the development of therapeutic strategies that may be used over a long time period is required to improve survival.

Factors responsible for long-term survival in metastatic breast cancer.

Background: Although survival of patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) has been significantly prolonged over the past decade due to improvement of anti-cancer therapeutics, only a few patients survive for more than 10 years. It has not been determined which patients can have long-term survival with treatment.

Methods: To determine prognostic factors responsible for long-term survival, we retrospectively compared clinicopathologic factors of patients with MBC who survived for 50 months or more after diagnosis with patients who did not.

Metronomic chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer to prolong time to treatment failure to 12 months or more.

The objective of treatment for metastatic breast cancer (MBC) is to control the disease or disease-related symptoms. Prolonged survival has also often been achieved by chemotherapeutic regimens in this setting. Long-term administration of one therapeutic regimen is essential for prolonging survival as well as for maintaining quality of life in these patients.

Clinical usefulness of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 extracellular domain as a biomarker for monitoring cancer status and predicting the therapeutic efficacy in breast cancer.

We assessed the clinical usefulness of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 extracellular domain (HER2ECD) as a biomarker for detecting cancer and monitoring disease status and for predicting the efficacy of anticancer treatment in breast cancer. Five-hundred and eighty serum samples from 252 patients with breast cancer were examined for the concentration of HER2ECD to compare with conventional tumor markers (CEA, CA15-3, NCC-ST439 and BCA225). Also, in 19 patients with HER2-overexpressed advanced or recurrent breast cancer who were treated with trastuzumab, clinical outcomes were evaluated retrospectively to determine whether their serum HER2ECD levels predict clinical responses.

Arteriosclerotic changes as background factors in patients with peripheral vestibular disorders.

Symptoms such as vertigo and unsteady gait occur in various diseases and are among the relatively common chief complaints. Even at present, the mechanisms underlying these disorders are unclear. We considered the possibility of peripheral vestibular disorders correlating with lifestyle-related illnesses.