Publications by authors named "W E Drane"

We present 8-year follow-up on the first patient with stage 4 ameloblastoma carrying a BRAF V600E mutation treated with dual BRAF/MEK inhibition (BRAF/MEKi). He experienced a durable clinical response while on dabrafenib (BRAFi) and trametinib (MEKi) without toxicity nor evidence for drug-resistant tumor progression. He was asymptomatic when he self-discontinued therapy after 4 years of sustained clinical response.

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Programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) and programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) checkpoint inhibitors induce tumor response by activating the patient's own immune system to fight cancer. Tumors with high tumor mutational burden or those that express high levels of PD-1/PD-L1 are more responsive to PD1/PDL1 inhibitors. There is much interest in determining how to improve response to PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors.

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Article Synopsis
  • Study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a standardized PET-CT program 12 weeks post-radiotherapy for patients with N2 squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx to determine the necessity of neck dissection.
  • Among 50 patients, the PET-CT's ability to detect residual disease showed 0% sensitivity and a 91% negative predictive value, indicating it was good at ruling out the need for further surgery.
  • The study concluded that a negative PET-CT can be a reliable indicator that neck dissection is unnecessary, as most recurrences occur over a year later, with a low success rate for salvage treatment.
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