Publications by authors named "Uhi Toh"

An 82-year-old woman, who underwent a mastectomy for right breast cancer 35 years ago, presented to our hospital with a chief complaint of general malaise and dyspnea. A chest CT scan revealed a right pleural effusion and multiple bone metastases. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed a small bulge in the mid gastric fold, which was diagnosed as a metastatic breast cancer lesion, based on pathological diagnosis and immunostaining findings.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study explores the controversial role of primary tumor resection (PTR) in patients with de novo stage IV breast cancer (DnIV BC) and its potential surgical benefits based on clinical outcomes.
  • Researchers analyzed data from patients who received systemic therapies and underwent PTR between 2004 and 2022, finding notable differences in progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) between those who had surgery and those who did not.
  • Results suggest that a longer duration of effective systemic therapy (over 8.1 months) and a low neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR ≤ 3) can indicate the potential advantages of PTR, aiding in timing decisions for surgery in DnIV BC patients
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  • A multicenter phase III trial is being conducted to evaluate a dexamethasone-based mouthwash for preventing chemotherapy-induced stomatitis in early breast cancer patients.
  • The study will involve 230 patients, randomly assigned to either the dexamethasone mouthwash group or a control group using tap water as mouthwash.
  • The main goal is to measure the effectiveness of the mouthwash in reducing the incidence of stomatitis, tracked through electronic patient-reported outcomes.
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  • The study aimed to examine how changes in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) after treatment with palbociclib and fulvestrant might predict clinical outcomes for patients with advanced breast cancer.
  • This analysis involved 56 patients from a prior clinical trial, comparing cfDNA samples taken before treatment and on day 15 of the first treatment cycle.
  • Although there was a significant decrease in the number of mutated genes by day 15, no significant impact on progression-free survival (PFS) was found, suggesting that further research is needed to understand the clinical relevance of cfDNA changes.
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Aims: Cancer treatment-related cardiovascular toxicity (CTR-CVT) is a growing concern in patients undergoing anticancer therapy. The Heart Failure Association (HFA) and International Cardio-Oncology Society (ICOS) risk assessment tools have been proposed for the baseline cardiovascular (CV) risk stratification of patients with cancer. This study investigated the incidence of CV adverse events in clinical practice, also using the HFA-ICOS risk tool.

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  • The study explores the effectiveness of combining fulvestrant and palbociclib for treating hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer (MBC) in patients who previously showed resistance to fulvestrant alone.
  • A total of 167 patients were enrolled, with 72 receiving the combination therapy after progressing on fulvestrant; the median progression-free survival (PFS) for the combination therapy was 9.4 months compared to 25.7 months for fulvestrant alone.
  • The research indicates that the combination treatment is potentially safe and can be effective for patients with advanced MBC, particularly those who were on fulvestrant for more than a
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Background/aim: Post-menopausal breast cancer (BC) patients who receive adjuvant aromatase inhibitor (AI) therapy may be at increased risk of bone loss, osteoporosis, and bone fracture. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of oral bisphosphonate minodronate in preventing bone loss complications.

Patients And Methods: Patients receiving AI and 80% of those with suboptimal bone mineral density (BMD) were prescribed monthly oral minodronate 50 mg every 4 weeks for 72 weeks.

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The present study aimed to clarify the humoral and cellular immune responses of patients with cancer who experienced no recurrence over a long term after receiving a cancer vaccine. The immune kinetics were investigated in response to a personalized peptide vaccination (PPV) among 44 Japanese patients without an active tumor at entry to the vaccination: Lung adenocarcinoma (n=11); colon (n=18); and breast cancer (n=15) (9, 10, 12, 8 and 5 patients with stage I, II, III and IV recurrences, respectively). The patients' immunoglobulin G (IgG) and cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) activities were measured using a multiplexed Luminex assay and an interferon-γ release assay, respectively.

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Background: Anticancer treatment regimens typically cause unpleasant side-effects. We aimed to investigate the benefit of switch maintenance endocrine therapy plus bevacizumab after fixed cycles of first-line induction chemotherapy with weekly paclitaxel plus bevacizumab in patients with oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer.

Methods: BOOSTER was a prospective, open-label, multicentre, randomised, controlled, phase 2 study done in 53 hospitals in Japan.

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The present study assessed plasma IgG in patients with metastatic recurrent breast cancer (mrBC) that is reactive to various T-cell epitope peptides of prostate-related antigens (PRAs), such as prostate-specific antigen, prostate-specific membrane antigen and prostate acid phosphatase. Patients were treated with personalized peptide vaccines (PPVs) which were selected and administered from a panel of candidate peptides based on human leukocyte antigen-types and prevaccination IgG levels to each peptide. The peptide panel consisted of 27 cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-epitope peptides derived from tumor-associated antigens, not including PRA.

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Background: Nanoparticle albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-PTX), a novel taxane formulation, was developed to avoid cremophor/ethanol-associated toxicities including peripheral neuropathy and hypersensitivity. At least 35 phase II studies using combined nab-PTX and anthracycline in neoadjuvant settings are registered in Japan. We analyzed the efficacy and safety of nab-PTX based on patient characteristics in these studies.

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Advances in multi-modality treatments incorporating systemic chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, and radiotherapy for the management of breast cancer have resulted in a surgical-management paradigm change toward less-aggressive surgery that combines the use of breast-conserving or -reconstruction therapy as a new standard of care with a higher emphasis on cosmesis. The implementation of skin-sparing and nipple-sparing mastectomies (SSM, NSM) has been shown to be oncologically safe, and breast reconstructive surgery is being performed increasingly for patients with breast cancer. NSM and breast reconstruction can also be performed as prophylactic or risk-reduction surgery for women with BRCA gene mutations.

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Clinical evidence has indicated that, after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy(NAC), sentinel node(SN)identification rates(IR) were lower and false-negative rates(FNR)were higher for patients(pts)with local advanced breast cancer(BC)than for pts with early stage BC who did not receive NAC. Our previous clinical trial indicated that the real-time indocyanin green (RT-ICG)fluorescence imaging technique could improve the diagnostic sensitivity and detection accuracy of sentinel node biopsy(SNB). Nine pts with histologically confirmed Stage ⅡA to ⅢB, T1-T3, N0-2, M0 BC were selected to receive NAC, and the standard surgeries were performed after NAC completion.

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Purpose: To investigate the effectiveness and safety of bevacizumab-paclitaxel combination therapy as first- or second-line chemotherapy for HER2-negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer in daily clinical practice.

Methods: In this prospective multicenter observational study, bevacizumab-paclitaxel was administered at the discretion of attending physicians. Cohorts A and B had hormone receptor-positive and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), respectively.

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We undertook an early phase II study of mixed 19-peptide cancer vaccine monotherapy for 14 advanced metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (mTNBC) patients refractory to systemic chemotherapy to develop a new type of cancer vaccine. The treatment protocol consisted of a weekly vaccination for 6 weeks, and there were no severe adverse events related to the vaccination throughout the trial. Increase of peptide-specific IgG against the vaccinated human leukocyte antigen-matched peptides, but not against the nonmatched peptides, was positively correlated with overall survival (OS) (P < .

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Peptide‑based cancer vaccines have failed to provide sufficient clinical benefits in order to be approved in clinical trials since the 1990s. To understand the mechanisms underlying this failure, the present study investigated biomarkers associated with the lower overall survival (OS) among 2,588 patients receiving personalized peptide vaccination (PPV). Survival data were obtained from a database of 2,588 cancer patients including 399 patients with lung, 354 with prostate and 344 with colon cancer.

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Aims: HER2-positive (HER2+) breast carcinoma (BC) cases are often treated similarly; however, they can be classified as either luminal B (LH) or non-luminal type (NLH) BC, which have different prognoses. In this study, we investigated the clinicohistomorphological features of each HER2+ BC subgroup.

Methods And Results: We classified 166 patients with HER2+ invasive BC into LH (n = 110, 66.

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Objective: To assess the correlations between dual-phase fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (F-FDG) uptake and clinicopathological and immunohistochemical prognostic factors in patients with surgically resected breast cancer.

Subjects And Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the cases of 105 patients. We calculated the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) at 85min (SUV1), SUVmax at 125min (SUV2) and the retention index [RI].

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Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-related biomarkers and the treatment outcomes using lapatinib plus capecitabine (LC) and to evaluate the influence of the estrogen receptor (ER) status in trastuzumab-refractory HER2-positive advanced breast cancer.

Method: Eighty patients were enrolled in this study. Total HER2, p95HER2, and total HER3 expression were quantified using the VeraTag assays.

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The HLA-A11 or -A33 allele is found in approximately 18% or 10% of the Asian population, respectively, but each of which is a minor allele worldwide, and therefore no clinical trials were previously conducted. To develop a therapeutic peptide vaccine for each of them, we investigated immunological responses of advanced cancer patients with the HLA-A11 /A11 (n = 18) or -A33 /A33 (n = 13) allele to personalized peptide vaccine (PPV) regimens. The primary sites of HLA-A11+/A11+ or -A33+/A33+ patients were the colon (n = 4 or 2), stomach (2 or 3), breast (3 or 2), lung and pancreas (2 or 2), and so on.

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Endocrine therapies effectively improve the outcomes of patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer. However, the emergence of drug-resistant tumors creates a core clinical challenge. In breast cancer cells rendered resistant to the antiestrogen fulvestrant, we defined causative mechanistic roles for the transcription factor YBX1 and the levels of ER and the ERBB2 receptor.

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The aim of this research was to investigate the correlation of immunologic factors in the tumor environment of breast cancer, using immunohistological staining to evaluate the expression of programmed death 1/programmed death ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1), phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), and macrophages, and to analyze the association between the immunologic factors and clinical outcome for patients with early stage breast cancer (EBC). A total of 97 EBC patients who underwent standard surgery were investigated. Expression of PD-1/PD-L1 and PTEN and the density of CD3 TILs, CD8 TILs, and CD163 macrophages were evaluated by immunohistochemical analysis.

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Our previous phase II clinical trial showed that therapeutically selected personalized peptide vaccines(PPVs)were effective at boosting anticancer immunity; the immune response after PPV was associated with a clinical outcome as a prognostic factor for metastatic breast cancer(mBC). We conducted an early phase II study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a new regimen using multiple peptide vaccines(KRM-19)for patients with metastatictriple -negative breast cancer. KRM-19 consisted of 19 mixed peptides chosen from the previously reported 31 PPVs according to their anti-tumor immunologiceffec ts and safety profiles for patients with mBC.

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Recently, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) of cancer patients have been analyzed as a biomarker of disease progression and as a new prognostic tool.We conducted a pilot study to determine whether CTCs present before and after chemotherapy or peptide vaccination predicted outcome in patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). CTCs were isolated from the peripheral blood of MBC patients and evaluated using the CellSearch®System (Janssen Diagnostics).

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To develop a peptide vaccine for cancer patients with the HLA-A26 allele, which is a minor population worldwide, we investigated the immunological responses of HLA-A26(+) /A26(+) cancer patients to four different CTL epitope peptides under personalized peptide vaccine regimens. In personalized peptide vaccine regimens, two to four peptides showing positive peptide-specific IgG responses in pre-vaccination plasma were selected from the four peptide candidates applicable for HLA-A26(+) /A26(+) cancer patients and administered s.c.

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