Digital Rehabilitation Program for Breast Cancer Survivors on Adjuvant Hormonal Therapy: A Feasibility Study.

: Breast cancer survivors often face physical and psychological challenges, including weight gain, metabolic syndrome, and reduced quality of life. To address these concerns, a mobile app-based rehabilitation program called "THRIVE" was developed to improve physical activity, medication adherence, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in this population. : This prospective, single-arm study assessed the feasibility and effectiveness of the "THRIVE" app among breast cancer survivors undergoing hormonal therapy.

Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Low-Dose CT Reconstruction via Bayesian Uncertainty Alignment.

Low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) image reconstruction techniques can reduce patient radiation exposure while maintaining acceptable imaging quality. Deep learning (DL) is widely used in this problem, but the performance of testing data (also known as target domain) is often degraded in clinical scenarios due to the variations that were not encountered in training data (also known as source domain). Unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) of LDCT reconstruction has been proposed to solve this problem through distribution alignment.

Evaluating Virtual Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Radiation Therapy: A Retrospective Analysis for Primary Gross Tumor Delineation.

Purpose: To investigate the potential of virtual contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (VCE-MRI) for gross-tumor-volume (GTV) delineation of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) using multi-institutional data.

Methods And Materials: This study retrospectively retrieved T1-weighted (T1w), T2-weighted (T2w) MRI, gadolinium-based contrast-enhanced MRI (CE-MRI), and planning computed tomography (CT) of 348 biopsy-proven NPC patients from 3 oncology centers. A multimodality-guided synergistic neural network (MMgSN-Net) was trained using 288 patients to leverage complementary features in T1w and T2w MRI for VCE-MRI synthesis, which was independently evaluated using 60 patients.

Identification and Characterization of Metastasis-Initiating Cells in ESCC in a Multi-Timepoint Pulmonary Metastasis Mouse Model.

Metastasis is the biggest obstacle to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) treatment. Single-cell RNA sequencing analyses are applied to investigate lung metastatic ESCC cells isolated from pulmonary metastasis mouse model at multiple timepoints to characterize early metastatic microenvironment. A small population of parental KYSE30 cell line (Cluster S) resembling metastasis-initiating cells (MICs) is identified because they survive and colonize at lung metastatic sites.

Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy and Liver Transplant for Liver Cancer: A Nonrandomized Controlled Trial.

Importance: Whether stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) as a bridge to liver transplant for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is effective and safe is still unknown.

Objective: To investigate the feasibility of SBRT before deceased donor liver transplant (DDLT) for previously untreated unresectable HCC.

Design, Setting, And Participants: In this phase 2 nonrandomized controlled trial conducted between June 1, 2015, and October 18, 2019, 32 eligible patients within UCSF (University of California, San Francisco) criteria underwent dual-tracer (18F-fluorodeoxyglucose and 11C-acetate [ACC]) positron emission tomography with computed tomography (PET-CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with gadoxetate followed by SBRT of 35 to 50 Gy in 5 fractions, and the same imaging afterward while awaiting DDLT.

Learning Robust Shape Regularization for Generalizable Medical Image Segmentation.

Generalizable medical image segmentation enables models to generalize to unseen target domains under domain shift issues. Recent progress demonstrates that the shape of the segmentation objective, with its high consistency and robustness across domains, can serve as a reliable regularization to aid the model for better cross-domain performance, where existing methods typically seek a shared framework to render segmentation maps and shape prior concurrently. However, due to the inherent texture and style preference of modern deep neural networks, the edge or silhouette of the extracted shape will inevitably be undermined by those domain-specific texture and style interferences of medical images under domain shifts.

The trends in lung cancer prevalence, incidence, and survival in Hong Kong over the past two decades (2002-2021): a population-based study.

Background: Over the past decades, significant progress in lung cancer management has been made. However, the trends in prevalence and survival of lung cancer in the Chinese population over the last decade remain unexplored. This study utilised a territory-wide electronic medical database in Hong Kong to provide the most up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the trends in prevalence, incidence, and survival over the past two decades.

Single-Cell Secretion Analysis via Microfluidic Cell Membrane Immunosorbent Assay for Immune Profiling.

Single-cell multiplexed phenotypic analysis expands the biomarkers for diagnosis, heralding a new era of precision medicine. Cell secretions are the primary measures of immune function, but single-cell screening remains challenging. Here, a novel cell membrane-based assay was developed using cholesterol-linked antibodies (CLAbs), integrating immunosorbent assays and droplet microfluidics to develop a flexible high-throughput single-cell secretion assay for multiplexed phenotyping.

Radiologic extranodal extension for nodal staging in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Purpose: Extranodal extension (ENE) has the potential to add value to the current nodal staging system (N) for predicting outcome in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). This study aimed to incorporate ENE, as well as cervical nodal necrosis (CNN) to the current stage N3 and evaluated their impact on outcome prediction. The findings were validated on an external cohort.

Nasopharynx Battlefield: Cellular Immune Responses Mediated by Midkine in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma and COVID-19.

Clinical evidence suggests that the severe respiratory illness coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is often associated with a cytokine storm that results in dysregulated immune responses. Prolonged COVID-19 positivity is thought to disproportionately affect cancer patients. With COVID-19 disrupting the delivery of cancer care, it is crucial to gain momentum and awareness of the mechanistic intersection between these two diseases.

Complications of Central Venous Access Devices Used in Palliative Care Settings for Terminally Ill Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

(1) Background: Central venous access devices (CVADs) have been commonly employed during various courses of anticancer treatment. Currently, there are a few types of clinically available CVADs, which are associated with short-term and long-term complications. However, little is known about the complication rates when CVADs are used only in palliative care settings.

Model Generalizability Investigation for GFCE-MRI Synthesis in NPC Radiotherapy Using Multi-Institutional Patient-Based Data Normalization.

Recently, deep learning has been demonstrated to be feasible in eliminating the use of gadoliniumbased contrast agents (GBCAs) through synthesizing gadolinium-free contrast-enhanced MRI (GFCE-MRI) from contrast-free MRI sequences, providing the community with an alternative to get rid of GBCAs-associated safety issues in patients. Nevertheless, generalizability assessment of the GFCE-MRI model has been largely challenged by the high inter-institutional heterogeneity of MRI data, on top of the scarcity of multi-institutional data itself. Although various data normalization methods have been adopted to address the heterogeneity issue, it has been limited to single-institutional investigation and there is no standard normalization approach presently.

Safety, Tolerability, and Antitumor Activity of Zipalertinib Among Patients With Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Harboring Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Exon 20 Insertions.

Purpose: Although several agents targeting epidermal growth factor receptor () exon 20 insertions (ex20ins) have recently been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, toxicities related to the inhibition of wild-type (WT) are common with these agents and affect overall tolerability. Zipalertinib (CLN-081, TAS6417) is an oral EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) with a novel pyrrolopyrimidine scaffold leading to enhanced selectivity for ex20ins-mutant versus WT with potent inhibition of cell growth in ex20ins-positive cell lines.

Methods: This phase 1/2a study of zipalertinib enrolled patients with recurrent or metastatic ex20ins-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) previously treated with platinum-based chemotherapy.

Consensus Statements on Precision Oncology in the China Greater Bay Area.

Background: Next-generation sequencing comprehensive genomic panels (NGS CGPs) have enabled the delivery of tailor-made therapeutic approaches to improve survival outcomes in patients with cancer. Within the China Greater Bay Area (GBA), territorial differences in clinical practices and health care systems and strengthening collaboration warrant a regional consensus to consolidate the development and integration of precision oncology (PO). Therefore, the Precision Oncology Working Group (POWG) formulated standardized principles for the clinical application of molecular profiling, interpretation of genomic alterations, and alignment of actionable mutations with sequence-directed therapy to deliver clinical services of excellence and evidence-based care to patients with cancer in the China GBA.

Explainable machine learning via intra-tumoral radiomics feature mapping for patient stratification in adjuvant chemotherapy for locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Purpose: This study aimed to discover intra-tumor heterogeneity signature and validate its predictive value for adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) following concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (LA-NPC).

Materials And Methods: 397 LA-NPC patients were retrospectively enrolled. Pre-treatment contrast-enhanced T1-weighted (CET1-w) MR images, clinical variables, and follow-up were retrospectively collected.

Functions of double-negative B cells in autoimmune diseases, infections, and cancers.

Most mature B cells can be divided into four subtypes based on the expression of the surface markers IgD and CD27: IgD CD27 naïve B cells, IgD CD27 unswitched memory B cells, IgD CD27 switched memory B cells, and IgD CD27 double-negative (DN) B cells. Despite their small population size in normal peripheral blood, DN B cells play integral roles in various diseases. For example, they generate autoimmunity in autoimmune conditions, while these cells may generate both autoimmune and antipathogenic responses in COVID-19, or act in a purely antipathogenic capacity in malaria.

Respiratory-Correlated 4-Dimensional Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting for Liver Cancer Radiation Therapy Motion Management.

Purpose: The objective of this study was to develop a respiratory-correlated (RC) 4-dimensional (4D) imaging technique based on magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) (RC-4DMRF) for liver tumor motion management in radiation therapy.

Methods And Materials: Thirteen patients with liver cancer were prospectively enrolled in this study. k-space MRF signals of the liver were acquired during free-breathing using the fast acquisition with steady-state precession sequence on a 3T scanner.

Predictive factors of delayed viral clearance of asymptomatic Omicron-related COVID-19 screened positive in patients with cancer receiving active anticancer treatment.

Objectives: We sought to identify the predictors of delayed viral clearance in patients with cancer with asymptomatic COVID-19 when the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants prevailed in Hong Kong.

Methods: All patients with cancer who were attending radiation therapy for head and neck malignancies or systemic anticancer therapy saved their deep throat saliva or nasopharyngeal swabs at least twice weekly for SARS-CoV-2 screening between January 1 and April 30, 2022. The multivariate analyses identified predictors of delayed viral clearance (or slow recovery), defined as >21 days for the cycle threshold values rising to ≥30 or undetectable in two consecutive samples saved within 72 hours.

ENOX2 inhibition enhances infiltration of effector memory T-cell and mediates response to chemotherapy in immune-quiescent nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Introduction: The immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment is a major barrier for chemotherapy. Different chemosensitization approaches to reinstate immunological surveillance for cancers that are immune quiescent at the outset, have thus been devised. Cancer-specific ENOX2 expression is correlated with abnormal cell growth and has been proposed as a cellular target for anti-cancer activity.

Prognostic MicroRNA Fingerprints Predict Recurrence of Early-Stage Hepatocellular Carcinoma Following Hepatectomy.

This study aims to develop liquid biopsy assays for early HCC diagnosis and prognosis. Twenty-three microRNAs were first consolidated as a panel (HCCseek-23 panel) based on their reported functions in HCC development. Serum samples were collected from 103 early-stage HCC patients before and after hepatectomy.

Radiomic feature repeatability and its impact on prognostic model generalizability: A multi-institutional study on nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.

Background And Purpose: To investigate the radiomic feature (RF) repeatability via perturbation and its impact on cross-institutional prognostic model generalizability in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (NPC) patients.

Materials And Methods: 286 and 183 NPC patients from two institutions were included for model training and validation. Perturbations with random translations and rotations were applied to contrast-enhanced T1-weighted (CET1-w) MR images.

Enhanced mitophagy driven by ADAR1-GLI1 editing supports the self-renewal of cancer stem cells in HCC.

Background And Aims: Deregulation of adenosine-to-inosine editing by adenosine deaminase acting on RNA 1 (ADAR1) leads to tumor-specific transcriptome diversity with prognostic values for HCC. However, ADAR1 editase-dependent mechanisms governing liver cancer stem cell (LCSC) generation and maintenance have remained elusive.

Approach And Results: RNA-seq profiling identified ADAR1-responsive recoding editing events in HCC and showed editing frequency of GLI1 , rather than transcript abundance was clinically relevant.

Quantitative Spatial Characterization of Lymph Node Tumor for N Stage Improvement of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Patients.

This study aims to investigate the feasibility of improving the prognosis stratification of the N staging system of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (NPC) from quantitative spatial characterizations of metastatic lymph node (LN) for NPC in a multi-institutional setting. A total of 194 and 284 NPC patients were included from two local hospitals as the discovery and validation cohort. Spatial relationships between LN and the surrounding organs were quantified by both distance and angle histograms, followed by principal component analysis.

Clinical practice guidelines and real-life practice on hepatocellular carcinoma: the Hong Kong perspective.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major public health burden in Hong Kong, and chronic hepatitis B is the most common HCC etiology in our region. With the high case load, extensive local expertise on HCC has been accumulated. This article summarized local guidelines and real-life practice on HCC management in Hong Kong.