Biomedical subjects

A Gadducci

Publications and source records attributed to A Gadducci.

150 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Preoperative serum antibodies against the p53 protein in patients with ovarian and endometrial cancer.

Antibodies against the p53 protein were measured with a sandwich-type enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in blood samples preoperatively collected from 30 patients with ovarian cancer and 30 patients with endometrial cancer. Anti-p53 antibodies were detected in 33.3% of patients with ovarian cancer, comprising 22.2% of the 9 patients with stage I-II disease, 30.8% of the 13 patients with stage III disease, and 50.0% of the 8 patients with stage IV disease. Anti-p53 antibodies were found in none of the 4 patients with well differentiated tumors and in 38.5% of the 26 patients with moderately or poorly differentiated tumors. Among the 21 patients with stage III-IV disease, a complete clinical response to front-line platinum-based chemotherapy was obtained by 46.2% of the 13 patients without anti-p53 antibodies and 25.0% of the 8 patients with anti-p53 antibodies. Antibodies against the p53 protein were detected in only 6.7% of patients with endometrial cancer. The low incidence of anti-p53 antibodies in patients with endometrial cancer seems to suggest that the serum assay of these autoantibodies has a limited clinical relevance in the management of this malignancy. On the other hand in patients with ovarian cancer the incidence of serum anti-p53 antibodies is relatively high, and, moreover, it seems to increase with tumor stage and grade and seems to be associated with a lower response rate to chemotherapy. However, the small number of patients did not allow us to obtain statistically significant differences.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Hormone replacement therapy and gynecological cancer.

The aim of this paper is to report the risk of development of gynecological cancer in women receiving hormone replacement therapy and to review the current knowledge on the administration of hormone replacement therapy following treatment of gynecological cancer. Estrogens alone may act as promoting factors for endometrial carcinogenesis. However, the addition of progestins reduces the risk of endometrial cancer to that of nonusers. Hormone replacement therapy could be given to selected patients following treatment for endometrial cancer. However, we think that this therapy should be reserved only for patients enrolled in controlled clinical trials. Ovarian cancer does not seem to be sensitive to estrogens, even if current literature does not allow firm conclusions to be drawn. Hormone replacement therapy should be offered to patients previously treated for ovarian cancer and cervical cancer.

Carcinoma, Squamous Cell↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Serum assay of soluble CD44 standard (sCD44-st), CD44 splice variant v5 (sCD44-v5), and CD44 splice variant v6 (sCD44-v6) in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer.

Different variants of the cell adhesion molecule CD44 have been involved in malignant transformation and cancer metastasis. In the present investigation we assessed the preoperative serum levels of soluble CD44 standard (sCD44-st), sCD44 splice variant 5 (sCD44-v5), and sCD44 splice variant 6 (sCD44-v6) in 51 patients with ovarian cancer. Median preoperative sCD44-st, sCD44v5, and sCD44-v6 levels were 417 ng/ml (range, 240- > 602 ng/ml), 78 ng/ml (range, 5-314 ng/ml), and 86 ng/ml (range, 1-243 ng/ml), respectively. No significant relationship was detected between sCD44-st concentrations and the common clinicopathological variables. Conversely, sCD44-v5 and sCD44-v6 levels were significantly lower in FIGO stage III-IV than in stage I disease (p < 0.0001 and p = 0.001, respectively). Moreover, with regard to advanced ovarian cancer, sCD44-v5 levels were lower in patients with poorly differentiated (G3) than in those with moderately (G2) or well (G1) differentiated tumors (p = 0.038), as well as in patients whose residual disease was > 2 cm than in those with smaller residuum (p = 0.025). Similarly, sCD44-v6 levels were lower in patients with large residual disease (p = 0.05). The median value of serum sCD44-v6 was lower in patients with G3 than in those with G1-G2 tumor, but the difference was not significant. In conclusion, sCD44-st, sCD44-v5, and sCD44-v6 are detectable in sera from patients with epithelial ovarian cancer. A reduction in preoperative sCD44-v5 and sCD44-v6 levels seems to be associated with advanced, poorly differentiated tumors and with large residual disease after first surgery, and it might reflect an increased biological aggressiveness of the malignancy.

Alternative Splicing↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Platinum compounds and paclitaxel in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer.

Cisplatin is the most active agent currently employed in epithelial ovarian cancer. A meta-analysis of the Advanced Ovarian Cancer Trialists Group suggested that in terms of immediate survival platinum-based therapy was superior to nonplatinum regimens and that regimens including cisplatin were superior to single agent cisplatin given at the same doses. Intraperitoneal cisplatin seems to offer some clinical benefit when compared to systemic cisplatin in patients with minimal residual disease after initial surgery. An overview on the role of anthracyclines using data from the Advanced Ovarian Cancer Trialists Group and the Ovarian Cancer Meta-Analysis Project suggested that the addition of doxorubicin significantly improves survival and that the size of this benefit is of a similar magnitude to that of platinum. Carboplatin and cisplatin are equiactive, and the different spectrum of toxicities could offer an appropriate criterion for the choice of the platinum analogue to use in the individual patient. At present, there is no conclusive evidence that cisplatin dose intense regimens are beneficial, and the issue of dose intensity must still be considered experimental. The combination of cisplatin + paclitaxel is able to obtain a better progression-free survival and survival than the association cisplatin + cyclophosphamide. Phase I-II trials on regimens including platinum compounds, anthracyclines and paclitaxel are currently ongoing.

Antineoplastic Agents↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The serum assay of soluble CD44 standard (sCD44-st), CD44 splice variant 5 (sCD44-v5), and CD44 splice variant 6 (sCD44-v6) in patients with cervical cancer.

The pretreatment serum levels of soluble CD44 standard (sCD44st), CD44 splice variant 5 (sCD44-v5), and CD44 splice variant 6 (sCD44-v6) were retrospectively measured in 37 patients with untreated cervical cancer and in 36 patients with benign gynecological diseases as controls. Median sCD44-st levels were significantly higher in patients with cervical cancer than in controls (547 ng/ml, range 244-880 ng/ml versus 400.5 ng/ml, range 217-723 ng/ml, p = 0.004), whereas sCD44-v5 and sCD44-v6 concentrations were significantly lower in the former (34 ng/ml, range 0-140 ng/ml versus 44 ng/ml, range 11-109 ng/ml, p = 0.038; and 37 ng/ml, range 1-191 ng/ml versus 52.5 ng/ml, range 11-173 ng/ml, p = 0.007, respectively). sCD44-st, sCD44-v5, and sCD44-v6 levels were not related to FIGO stage and histologic type. Moreover, among patients with stage Ib-IIa cervical cancer, the preoperative levels of these glycoproteins correlated with neither the common prognostic variables nor the clinical outcome. Therefore, the serum assay of sCD44-st, sCD44-v5, and sCD44-v6 seems to have no clinical relevance for the management of patients with cervical cancer.

Adenocarcinoma↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Serum anti-p53 antibodies in the follow-up of patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma.

Serum anti-p53 antibodies have been detected in different human malignancies, including ovarian carcinoma. In the present investigation these autoantibodies were retrospectively measured with a new ELISA (Immunotech, Marseilles, France) before first surgery and subsequently at different times during the course of disease from 40 patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma. Anti-p53 antibodies were preoperatively found in 15 (37.5%) patients. With regard to the follow-up of these 15 patients, anti-p53 antibodies were detected in 87.8% of the 41 samples drawn when there was clinical evidence of disease compared to 57.1% of the 14 samples collected when there was no clinical evidence of tumor (p = 0.037). As for the 25 patients whose serum originally scored negative, the autoantibodies were found only in 1.8% of the 113 samples obtained during the follow-up, independently of the status of disease. In conclusion, anti-p53 antibodies are often detected in serum from patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma. However, the serial measurement of these autoantibodies does not seem to give useful clinical information for the follow-up of these patients.

Adult↗