Immune checkpoint inhibitors and prostate cancer: a new frontier?
Despite recent advances in the treatment of metastatic castrationresistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), agents that provide durable disease control and long-term survival are still needed. It is a fact that a tumor-induced immunosuppressive status (mediated by aberrant activation of inhibitory immune checkpoint pathways as a mechanism to evade host immune surveillance) plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of cancer, including prostate cancer (PC), making CRPC patients suitable candidates for immunotherapy. Therefore, growing interest of anticancer research aims at blocking immune checkpoints (mainly targeting CTLA-4 and PD...
Source: Oncology Reviews - April 15, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research
Micro-ribonucleic acid and carcinogenesis: breast cancer as an example
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs that have unique functions at post-transcriptional level (epigenetics). MiRNAs play a pivotal role in controlling gene expression at various levels including differentiation, cell-cycle regulation, apoptosis and many others in mammals as well as in many organisms. Recently, there has been greater understanding of the contribution of dysregulation of miRNA into disease status in particular carcinogenesis. In this review, we will discuss miRNA discovery, nomenclature, function, contribution of their dysregulation into disease status in particular carcinogenesis and thei...
Source: Oncology Reviews - October 2, 2015 Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research
Simulants of malignant melanoma
During the recent period, dermoscopy has yielded improvement in the early disclosure of various atypical melanocytic neoplasms (AMN) of the skin. Beyond this clinical procedure, AMN histopathology remains mandatory for establishing their precise diagnosis. Of note, panels of experts in AMN merely report moderate agreement in various puzzling cases. Divergences in opinion and misdiagnosis are likely increased when histopathological criteria are not fine-tuned and when facing a diversity of AMN types. Furthermore, some AMN have been differently named in the literature including atypical Spitz tumor, metastasizing Spitz tumor...
Source: Oncology Reviews - August 5, 2015 Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research
Red meat and colorectal cancer
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer in men and the second in women worldwide. More than half of cases occur in more developed countries. The consumption of red meat (beef, pork, lamb, veal, mutton) is high in developed countries and accumulated evidence until today demonstrated a convincing association between the intake of red meat and especially processed meat and CRC risk. In this review, meta-analyses of prospective epidemiological studies addressed to this association, observed link of some subtypes of red meat with CRC risk, potential carcinogenic compounds, their mechanisms and actual recommendat...
Source: Oncology Reviews - February 10, 2015 Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research
Doxepin for radiation therapy-induced mucositis pain in the treatment of oral cancers
Radiotherapy (RT), an integral part of the oncologic treatment for patients with head and neck cancer, can cause adverse side effects such as oral mucositis (OM). Pain from OM can impact a patient’s quality of life and interrupt RT treatment schedules, which decreases the probability for achieving cancer cure. Conventionally, RT-induced OM pain is treated with analgesics and/or mouthwash rinses. Doxepin, a traditional tricyclic antidepressant with analgesic and anesthetic properties when applied topically to the mucosa, has been shown to lower OM pain in multiple single-arm trials (Epstein et al.) and more recently, in a...
Source: Oncology Reviews - February 10, 2015 Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research
