Influenza vaccination and healthcare workers: barriers and predisposing factors.

Background And Aim Of The Work: Influenza is a disease that affects a large part of the world's population annually, with major health, social and economic impacts. Active immunisation practices have always been recommended to counter influenza, especially for people at risk. The recommendations of major health agencies strongly advise influenza vaccination for all healthcare workers, mostly for those in contact with at-risk or immunocompromised individuals.

Trials in progress: IMagyn050/GOG 3015/ENGOT-OV39. A Phase III, multicenter, randomized study of atezolizumab versus placebo administered in combination with paclitaxel, carboplatin, and bevacizumab to patients with newly-diagnosed stage III or stage IV ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer.

Background: There is mounting pre-clinical and clinical evidence that combinations of immunotherapy, specifically programed cell death-1 (PD-1) inhibition, with chemotherapy and anti-angiogenesis agents, such as bevacizumab, result in markedly improved outcomes across a variety of tumor types including endometrial cancer, renal cell cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer. IMagyn050/GOG 3015/ENGOT-OV39 is the first, randomized, phase III trial to evaluate the potential impact of this combination on both progression-free survival and overall survival in patients presenting with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer.

Primary Objective: The primary objective is to evaluate the efficacy of atezolizumab versus placebo in combination with paclitaxel + carboplatin + bevacizumab for front-line treatment of ovarian cancer among all patients and those with PD-L1+ tumors.

Incidence of nausea and vomiting in breast cancer patients treated with anthracycline plus cyclophosphamide-based chemotherapy regimens in Italy: NAVY observational study.

Purpose: Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) is a common adverse event with cancer chemotherapy, despite the availability of effective antiemetic agents. This is a prospective observational study of Italian breast cancer patients treated with anthracycline plus cyclophosphamide (AC), assessed CINV incidence, adherence to national antiemetic guidelines (AIOM 2012), and the relationship with CINV outcomes.

Methods: Patients with breast cancer scheduled to receive their first cycle of an AC-based regimen were enrolled at 12 Italian centers and their clinical data prospectively recorded.

International validation of the consensus Immunoscore for the classification of colon cancer: a prognostic and accuracy study.

Background: The estimation of risk of recurrence for patients with colon carcinoma must be improved. A robust immune score quantification is needed to introduce immune parameters into cancer classification. The aim of the study was to assess the prognostic value of total tumour-infiltrating T-cell counts and cytotoxic tumour-infiltrating T-cells counts with the consensus Immunoscore assay in patients with stage I-III colon cancer.

Effect of rMnSOD on Sodium Reabsorption in Renal Proximal Tubule in Ochratoxin A-Treated Rats.

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a mycotoxin produced by Aspergillus and Penicillium that represent toxic real threat for human beings and animal health. In this study we evaluated the effect of a new recombinant mitochondrial manganese containing superoxide dismutase (rMnSOD) on oxidative stress and on the alterations of fluid reabsorption in renal proximal tubule (PT) as possible causes of OTA nephrotoxicity. Finally, we have measured the concentration of O in the kidney through dihydroethidium assay (DHE) and nitric oxide (NO) concentration through nitrites and nitrates assay.

Metabolic syndrome, endocrine disruptors and prostate cancer associations: biochemical and pathophysiological evidences.

This review summarizes the main pathophysiological basis of the relationship between metabolic syndrome, endocrine disruptor exposure and prostate cancer that is the most common cancer among men in industrialized countries. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of metabolic and hormonal factors having a central role in the initiation and recurrence of many western chronic diseases including hormonal-related cancers and it is considered as the world's leading health problem in the coming years. Many biological factors correlate metabolic syndrome to prostate cancer and this review is aimed to focus, principally, on growth factors, cytokines, adipokines, central obesity, endocrine abnormalities and exposure to specific endocrine disruptors, a cluster of chemicals, to which we are daily exposed, with a hormone-like structure influencing oncogenes, tumor suppressors and proteins with a key role in metabolism, cell survival and chemo-resistance of prostate cancer cells.

Role of DNA repair machinery and p53 in the testicular germ cell cancer: a review.

Notwithstanding the peculiar sensitivity to cisplatin-based treatment, resulting in a very high percentage of cures even in advanced stages of the disease, still we do not know the biological mechanisms that make Testicular Germ Cell Tumor (TGCT) "unique" in the oncology scene. p53 and MDM2 seem to play a pivotal role, according to several in vitro observations, but no correlation has been found between their mutational or expression status in tissue samples and patients clinical outcome. Furthermore, other players seem to be on stage: DNA Damage Repair Machinery (DDR) , especially Homologous Recombination (HR) proteins, above all Ataxia Telangiectasia Mutated (ATM), cooperates with p53 in response to DNA damage, activating apoptotic cascade and contributing to cell "fate".

Tumor infiltrating T lymphocytes expressing FoxP3, CCR7 or PD-1 predict the outcome of prostate cancer patients subjected to salvage radiotherapy after biochemical relapse.

Tumor immunologic microenvironment is strongly involved in tumor progression and the presence of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) with different phenotypes has been demonstrated to be of prognostic relevance in different malignancies. We investigated whether TIL infiltration of tumor tissues could also predict the outcome of prostate cancer patients. To this end, we carried out a retrospective analysis correlating the outcome of locally advanced prostate cancer patients undergone salvage radiotherapy upon relapse after radical surgery with the infiltration by different TIL populations.

From Clinical Trials to the Front Line: Vinflunine for Treatment of Urothelial Cell Carcinoma at the National Cancer Institute of Naples.

Background: The efficacy of Vinflunine, after failure of platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with metastatic or recurrent Transitional Cell Cancer of the Urothelial Tract, TCCU, has been demonstrated in an international, randomized, phase III trial comparing Vinflunine plus Best Supportive Care, BSC, with BSC alone. On the basis of that study vinflunine has been approved by the European Medicine Association, EMA, for treatment of TCCU patients after failure of a platinum treatment. However, since data in clinical trials often differ from routine clinical practice due to unselected population and less strict monitoring, "real life" experiences are very helpful to verify the efficacy of a new therapy.

Central venous device-related thrombosis as imaged with MDCT in oncologic patients: prevalence and findings.

Background: Venous thrombosis is a common occurrence in cancer patients, developing spontaneously or in combination with indwelling central venous devices (CVD).

Purpose: To analyze the multidetector CT (MDCT) prevalence, appearance, and significance of catheter-related thoracic venous thrombosis in oncologic patients and to determine the percentage of thrombi identified in the original reports.

Material And Methods: Five hundred consecutive patients were considered.

From mininvasive to maxinvasive surgery in colorectal cancer: modem evolution of oncologic specialized units.

In the last years a wide range of new technique offers the possibility to have R0 resection in colorectal cancer. We report our experience about Single Port Laparoscopic Surgery (SPL) for not advanced right colon cancer and about pelvectomy with cilindric Abdominal Perineal Resection (APR) for advanced rectal cancer. SPL offer mainly cosmetic advantages but also quicker recovery.

Restoring p53 function in cancer: novel therapeutic approaches for applying the brakes to tumorigenesis.

p53 tumor suppressor gene encodes for a critical cellular protein that regulate the integrity of the cell and can induce cell cycle arrest and/or apoptosis upon cellular stresses of several origins, including chemotherapeutics. Loss of p53 function occurs in an estimated 50% of all cancers by mutations and deletions while in the presence of wild-type p53 alleles other mechanisms may affect the expression and activity of p53. Alternate mechanisms include methylation of the promoter of p53, deletion or epigenetic inactivation of the p53-positive regulator p14/ARF, elevated expression of the p53 regulators murine double minute 2 (MDM2) and MDMX, or alteration of upstream regulators of p53 such as the kinase ATM.

Biophysical and biochemical characterization of a liposarcoma-derived recombinant MnSOD protein acting as an anticancer agent.

A recombinant MnSOD (rMnSOD) synthesized by specific cDNA clones derived from a liposarcoma cell line was shown to have the same sequence as the wild-type MnSOD expressed in the human myeloid leukaemia cell line U937, except for the presence of the leader peptide at the N-terminus. These results were fully confirmed by the molecular mass of rMnSOD as evaluated by ES/MS analysis (26662.7 Da) and the nucleotide sequence of the MnSOD cDNA.