Pan-tumor analysis to investigate the obesity paradox in immune checkpoint blockade.

Background: Obesity is a risk factor for developing cancer but is also associated with improved outcomes after treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), a phenomenon called the obesity paradox. To interrogate mechanisms of divergent immune responses in obese and non-obese patients, we examined the relationship among obesity status, clinical responses, and immune profiles from a diverse, pan-tumor cohort of patients treated with ICI-based therapy.

Methods: From June 2021 to March 2023, we prospectively collected serial peripheral blood samples from patients with advanced or metastatic solid tumors who received ICI as standard of care at Johns Hopkins.

Negative Prognostic Factors and Clinical Improvement Prediction Modeling for ESWT in Calcific Shoulder Tendinitis Using Artificial Intelligence Techniques.

Background: The efficacy of extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT) for treating shoulder calcific tendinitis can be influenced by various prognostic factors. This study aimed to identify prognostic factors associated with the failure of ESWT for symptom relief and to evaluate the predictive capability of the eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) algorithm of artificial intelligence techniques in this context.

Methods: This retrospective study enrolled patients with persistent shoulder pain attributed to calcific tendinitis who underwent ESWT after failed conservative treatment between January 1998 and December 2022.

Cancer associated fibroblasts drive epithelial to mesenchymal transition and classical to basal change in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cells with loss of IL-8 expression.

Unlabelled: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) carries an extremely poor prognosis, in part resulting from cellular heterogeneity that supports overall tumorigenicity. Cancer associated fibroblasts (CAF) are key determinants of PDAC biology and response to systemic therapy. While CAF subtypes have been defined, the effects of patient-specific CAF heterogeneity and plasticity on tumor cell behavior remain unclear.

Continuous cell type diversification throughout the embryonic and postnatal mouse visual cortex development.

The mammalian cortex is composed of a highly diverse set of cell types and develops through a series of temporally regulated events that build out the cell type and circuit foundation for cortical function. The mechanisms underlying the development of different cell types remain elusive. Single-cell transcriptomics provides the capacity to systematically study cell types across the entire temporal range of cortical development.

Advances in the understanding and therapeutic manipulation of cancer immune responsiveness: a Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) review.

Cancer immunotherapy-including immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI) and adoptive cell therapy (ACT)-has become a standard, potentially curative treatment for a subset of advanced solid and liquid tumors. However, most patients with cancer do not benefit from the rapidly evolving improvements in the understanding of principal mechanisms determining cancer immune responsiveness (CIR); including patient-specific genetically determined and acquired factors, as well as intrinsic cancer cell biology. Though CIR is multifactorial, fundamental concepts are emerging that should be considered for the design of novel therapeutic strategies and related clinical studies.