Targeted therapies and molecular targets in the therapeutic landscape of advanced urothelial carcinoma: state of the art and future perspectives.

Advanced urothelial carcinoma (aUC) has a dismal prognosis, with a 5-year survival rate of approximately 10%. Platinum-based chemotherapy has been the backbone of the first-line treatment of aUC for over 40 years. Only in the last decade, the treatment of aUC has evolved and been enriched with new classes of drugs that demonstrated pivotal improvements in terms of oncological responses and, ultimately, survival.

Treatment-related Hypertension as a Prognostic Factor for De Novo Metastatic Hormone-sensitive Prostate Cancer: A Retrospective Real-world Evidence Study.

Background And Objective: Hypertension (HTN) has been linked to an elevated risk of prostate cancer (PC) development and poorer prognosis in localized cases, and is a common side effect of hormonal PC treatments. However, its relationship with the prognosis of metastatic PC is still unclear. We assessed the prognostic role of treatment-related HTN in patients with de novo metastatic hormone-sensitive PC (mHSPC) undergoing androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) alone or in combination with docetaxel or androgen receptor pathway inhibitors (ARPIs).

The frontier of neoadjuvant therapy in non-small cell lung cancer beyond PD-(L)1 agents.

Introduction: While surgical resection is the cornerstone of treatment for resectable lung cancer, neoadjuvant/adjuvant chemotherapy has shown limited improvement in survival rates over the past decades. With the success of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in advanced NSCLC, there is growing interest in their application in earlier stages of the disease. Recent approvals for neoadjuvant/adjuvant ICIs in stage II-IIIA NSCLC highlight this shift in treatment paradigms.

Prognostic impact of Interleukin-8 levels in lung cancer: A meta-analysis and a bioinformatic validation.

Background: High interleukin-8 (IL-8) levels have been linked to poor prognosis in lung cancer, but conclusive data are lacking.

Materials And Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted on April 1st, 2023, from electronic databases, focusing on studies with IL-8 expression evaluations and the availability of hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS) and disease-free survival (DFS) or adequate data for their estimation. Then, we examined IL-8 and CXCR1 RNA-seq data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset, and we correlated these data with OS.

Prognostic and Predictive Role of SPOP Mutations in Prostate Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Context: Mutations in the speckle-type POZ (SPOP) gene are frequently identified in prostate cancer (PC); yet, prognostic implications for affected patients remain unclear. Limited consensus exists regarding tailored treatments for SPOP-mutant (SPOPmut) PC.

Objective: To elucidate the prognostic and predictive significance of SPOP mutations across distinct PC stages and treatments.

Safety of Biological Therapies for Severe Asthma: An Analysis of Suspected Adverse Reactions Reported in the WHO Pharmacovigilance Database.

Background: The management of uncontrolled severe asthma has greatly improved since the advent of novel biologic therapies. Up to August 2022, five biologics have been approved for the type 2 asthma phenotype: anti-IgE (omalizumab), anti-IL5 (mepolizumab, reslizumab, benralizumab), and anti-IL4 (dupilumab) monoclonal antibodies. These drugs are usually well tolerated, although long-term safety information is limited, and some adverse events have not yet been fully characterized.

Cross-sectional survey evaluating the psychological impact of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in patients with cancer: The VACCINATE study.

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted on cancer patients' psychological well-being and clinical status. We assessed the levels of anxiety, depression, and distress and the attitude towards COVID-19 vaccination in cancer patients, accepting vaccination at the Verona University Hospital and Camposampiero Hospital in the Veneto region. Self-reported questionnaires were administered to patients undergoing COVID-19 vaccination between March and May 2021 (first and second dose).

Characterization of Tumor and Immune Tumor Microenvironment of Primary Tumors and Metastatic Sites in Advanced Renal Cell Carcinoma Patients Based on Response to Nivolumab Immunotherapy: Preliminary Results from the Meet-URO 18 Study.

Background: Prognostic and predictive factors for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) treated with immunotherapy are highly warranted, and the immune tumor microenvironment (I-TME) is under investigation.

Methods: The Meet-URO 18 was a multicentric retrospective study assessing the I-TME in mRCC patients treated with ≥2nd-line nivolumab, dichotomized into and according to progression-free survival (≥12 months and ≤3 months, respectively). The primary objective was to identify differential immunohistochemical (IHC) patterns between the two groups.

A hierarchical cluster analysis of the psycological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Italian severe asthma patients.

Introduction: In the context of COVID-19 pandemic, a consistent medical concern raised among severe asthma patients, though the studies excluded an increased risk of severe disease as well as an increased susceptibility.The aim of the study was to apply the Psychological General Well-Being Index (PGWBI) questionnaire to severe asthmatics during the COVID-19 pandemic and to evaluate the data with a hierarchical cluster analysis.

Methods: 114 severe asthmatics were asked to respond anonymously to the PGWBI questionnaire.

Allergen-specific immunotherapy and COVID-19: What happened?

Background: The COVID-19 infection played a key role in the discontinuation of patient treatment, such as allergen-specific immunotherapy, in chronic diseases.

Objectives: We conducted a retrospective observational study at Verona University Hospital, Verona, Italy, to assess the level of adherence to sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) in patients affected by allergic rhinitis and mild asthma.

Materials And Methods: We compared and analysed data related to first prescription and collection of 5-grass-pollen 300-index of reactivity (IR) SLIT and tablet lyophilisate, containing 75,000 standardized quality tablet units (SQ-T) allergen extract of grass-pollen from L, for the five-year period 2017-2021.

The intriguing possibility of using probiotics in allergen-specific immunotherapy.

Allergen immunotherapy (AIT) can be considered the etiological therapy for allergic rhinitis and hymenoptera venom allergy. Its role is increasingly emerging in the context of IgE mediated food allergy, where the achievement of tolerance, or the permanent resolution of an allergy, represents the optimal goal of AIT. AIT treatment, indicated in adults and children with allergic rhinitis, has a preventative effect on the development of asthma and can also be used when asthma is associated to rhinitis; however, it is not the first choice for treatment of isolated asthma.

Endoscopic Technologies for Peripheral Pulmonary Lesions: From Diagnosis to Therapy.

Peripheral pulmonary lesions (PPLs) are frequent incidental findings in subjects when performing chest radiographs or chest computed tomography (CT) scans. When a PPL is identified, it is necessary to proceed with a risk stratification based on the patient profile and the characteristics found on chest CT. In order to proceed with a diagnostic procedure, the first-line examination is often a bronchoscopy with tissue sampling.

TSLP and HMGB1: Inflammatory Targets and Potential Biomarkers for Precision Medicine in Asthma and COPD.

The airway epithelium, through pattern recognition receptors expressed transmembrane or intracellularly, acts as a first line of defense for the lungs against many environmental triggers. It is involved in the release of alarmin cytokines, which are important mediators of inflammation, with receptors widely expressed in structural cells as well as innate and adaptive immune cells. Knowledge of the role of epithelial cells in orchestrating the immune response and mediating the clearance of invading pathogens and dead/damaged cells to facilitate resolution of inflammation is necessary to understand how, in many chronic lung diseases, there is a persistent inflammatory response that becomes the basis of underlying pathogenesis.

Relevance of Smoking Habit in Severe Asthma Patients: Evidence from the Severe Asthma Network in Italy (SANI) Registry.

Smoking habit is still fairly common among asthmatics. So far, the impact of smoke on severe asthma burden has not been specifically investigated. We aimed to estimate the frequency of smoking habit among severe asthma patients, their clinical features, and the impact of smoke on asthma outcomes.

IL-33 and the Cytokine Storm in COVID-19: From a Potential Immunological Relationship towards Precision Medicine.

Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has represented, and still represents, a real challenge from a clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic point of view. During acute infection, the increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are involved in the pathology of disease and the development of SARS-CoV-2-induced acute respiratory disease syndrome, the life-threatening form of this infection, are correlated with patient survival and disease severity. IL-33, a key cytokine involved in both innate and adaptive immune responses in mucosal organs, can increase airway inflammation, mucus secretion and Th2 cytokine synthesis in the lungs, following respiratory infections.

Rediscovering Allergic Rhinitis: The Use of a Novel mHealth Solution to Describe and Monitor Health-Related Quality of Life in Elderly Patients.

Introduction: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a disease characterized by IgE-mediated hypersensitivity responses akin to allergic asthma. Although common in children and young adults, AR can be particularly vexing in the elderly: several studies have underlined its impact on the patient's self-perceived health-related quality of life (HR-QoL). Available literature data on AR-affected elderly patients remain sparse and often focused on specific characteristics.

SEMA6A/RhoA/YAP axis mediates tumor-stroma interactions and prevents response to dual BRAF/MEK inhibition in BRAF-mutant melanoma.

Background: Despite the promise of dual BRAF/MEK inhibition as a therapy for BRAF-mutant (BRAF-mut) melanoma, heterogeneous responses have been observed in patients, thus predictors of benefit from therapy are needed. We have previously identified semaphorin 6A (SEMA6A) as a BRAF-mut-associated protein involved in actin cytoskeleton remodeling. The purpose of the present study is to dissect the role of SEMA6A in the biology of BRAF-mut melanoma, and to explore its predictive potential towards dual BRAF/MEK inhibition.

Relationship between hair shedding and systemic inflammation in COVID-19 pneumonia.

A higher risk for COVID-19 infection and severity for men compared to women has been described since the beginning of the pandemic. The role of androgens has been recently highlighted as they control two key steps of coronavirus infection mediated through the transmembrane protease serin 2 (TMPRRS2) and the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor in the lung tissue. Furthermore, a high incidence of androgenic alopecia among males with COVID-19 disease have been reported.