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Biomedical subjects

E Van Cutsem

Publications and source records attributed to E Van Cutsem.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

Antibody-drug conjugates in selected solid tumours: a position statement update based on findings from the third workshop held by the ETOP IBCSG Partners Foundation.

The European Thoracic Oncology Platform (ETOP) International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) Partners Foundation initiated a series of workshops for experts to review current evidence and offer recommendations to guide future antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) research. Here, we summarise key findings from the third workshop, which included experts in various solid tumours, basic/translational research scientists and pharmaceutical industry representatives. Recent positive phase III trial data have further incorporated ADCs into the standard of care [e.g. lung: sacituzumab tirumotecan; breast: trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd), sacituzumab govitecan, datopotamab deruxtecan; muscle-invasive bladder cancer: enfortumab vedotin; ovarian cancer: mirvetuximab soravastine; cervical cancer: tisotumab vedotin]. Thus, research priorities must be tailored according to tumour type, potentially focussing initially on settings where ADCs could replace chemotherapy. Many phase III ADC trials have been initiated based on positive phase I data and although these trials are larger than those conducted historically, prespecified criteria (e.g. patient numbers and magnitude of efficacy) should be met to justify proceeding directly to phase III. Importantly, although several ADCs have been successfully developed without mandatory biomarker selection, biomarker-driven ADC development enables rational patient selection, as illustrated by multiple ADCs (e.g. T-DXd, mirvetuximab soravtansine and telisotuzumab vedotin). The identification, development and validation of predictive biomarkers are therefore essential, particularly given several critical nuances, including the algorithms used to assess biomarker status and the type of specimen analysed, all of which may be influenced by temporal and spatial heterogeneity. Additional ADC research priorities include the optimisation of ADC constructs to enhance efficacy/tolerability and the identification of reliable ADC targets, including work to elucidate attributes of already-identified targets. Finally, considering the vast amount of ADC-related data being generated, artificial intelligence could be leveraged to analyse combined datasets and generate composite biomarkers, including tumour histology, optimal target expression thresholds, molecular alterations and activated pathways affecting payload activity and target function, to accelerate research.

Humans

Erythromycin accelerates gastric emptying by inducing antral contractions and improved gastroduodenal coordination.

Erythromycin has been shown to act as a motilin agonist by binding to motilin receptors on gastrointestinal smooth muscle and to improve the severely impaired gastric emptying in patients with diabetic gastroparesis. To elucidate the motor pattern that accounts for this accelerated emptying, the effect of 200 mg erythromycin vs. placebo on postprandial motility of the stomach and the upper small intestine was examined in 13 normal subjects. Erythromycin significantly increased the amplitude of the antral contractions during the 2-hour postprandial study period (maximal difference in mean amplitude of distal antral contractions between erythromycin and placebo recorded from 80 to 90 minutes after meal: 123 +/- 17 vs. 44 +/- 12 mm Hg; P less than 0.005). The total number of antral contractions was not affected, but the contractions could be recorded manometrically higher up in the stomach after erythromycin than after placebo (9-12 vs. 3-6 cm above the pylorus). Antroduodenal coordination was significantly improved during the first postprandial hour, and the first normal phase 3 of the migrating motor complex, indicating the reappearance of fasting motility, occurred earlier after erythromycin than after placebo (128.3 +/- 14.3 vs. 173.4 +/- 16.1 minutes; P less than 0.05). These changes in postprandial motility induced by erythromycin may well account for its accelerating effect on gastric emptying.

Adult

Effect of motilin on gastric emptying in patients with diabetic gastroparesis.

Erythromycin markedly accelerates gastric emptying, possibly because it acts as a motilin agonist. In the present study, the effect of an equipotent dose of motilin was tested. In six patients with severe diabetic gastroparesis, gastric emptying of liquids and solids was examined scintigraphically after motilin or placebo in a double-blind crossover study. Motilin (10 pmol.kg-1.min-1) or saline was infused over a 90-minute period starting 5 minutes before breakfast. Motilin markedly accelerated emptying. For liquids, the half-emptying time was reduced from 51 +/- 6 to 22 +/- 11 minutes (P less than 0.01) and for solids from 111 +/- 4 to 51 +/- 12 minutes (P less than 0.01). The mean increase in plasma motilin levels was 1315 +/- 342 pg/mL, corresponding to an effective infusion rate of about 4 pmol.kg-1.min-1. In the control experiments, basal motilin levels (173 +/- 17 pg/mL) were within the normal range but increased steadily postprandially, reaching 321 +/- 25 pg/mL at the end of the study period, probably reflecting gastric distension. The postprandial increase in pancreatic polypeptide level was blunted compared with accepted normal values but was more pronounced during motilin infusion, i.e., 650 +/- 217 vs. 279 +/- 66 pg/mL (P less than 0.01), probably because of the improved emptying. Our data show that motilin accelerates gastric emptying in diabetic gastroparesis and support the hypothesis that erythromycin's effect is mediated through motilin receptors.

Diabetic Neuropathies

Epidemiology and clinical aspects of esophageal cancer.

A review of the literature is done about the epidemiology and aetiology of esophageal cancer. Esophageal cancer is a relatively uncommon neoplasm in Western countries with a very poor prognosis. In industrialized countries alcohol and tobacco are the major risk factors. Nutritional factors play also an important role in the aetiology of esophageal cancer, particularly a diet rich in cereal but poor in fresh fruit and vegetables, accounts for some of the geographic differences. Several predisposing disorders for esophageal cancer are known and include Barrett's esophagus, achalasia, chronic strictures due to corrosive substances, tylosis, coeliac disease, and the Plummer-Vinson syndrome. The clinical manifestations are also discussed.

Alcoholism

Reversal of hepatorenal syndrome in four patients by peroral misoprostol (prostaglandin E1 analogue) and albumin administration.

Four consecutive patients with alcoholic cirrhosis and hepatorenal syndrome were treated with misoprostol, a synthetic methylester prostaglandin E1 analogue at twice the dosage advocated for anti-ulcer therapy (i.e., 0.4 mg four times per day orally) and albumin infusions. The mean urinary output obtained over the 3 days preceding misoprostol administration was 250, 315, 550 and 195 ml per 24 h, respectively, in the four patients, despite adequate volume expansion by plasma albumin to reach normal or high central venous pressure. Diuresis increased to 1450, 2440, 925 and 1300 ml, respectively, on days 2-4 after onset of therapy. Serum creatinine levels were 71, 51, 33 and 35 mg/l before and dropped to 26, 21, 13 and 17 mg/l during treatment. All patients had hyponatraemia (117-128 mequiv/l) which normalized, although they were continued on a low sodium intake of less than 10 mequiv per 24 h. Urinary sodium excretion increased from 0.4-3 mmol per 24 h, to 15-40 in the first two cases and only slightly to 3-5 in the last two patients. Three patients died after 10, 30 and 40 days due to oesophageal bleeding, encephalopathy or pulmonary infection, whereas one patient underwent an orthotopic liver transplantation when her serum creatinine attained a level of 13 mg/l. In the first patient, hepatorenal syndrome recurred 10 days after stopping the misoprostol treatment. High doses of misoprostol in the presence of adequate volume expansion thus seem to produce marked diuresis and creatininuria as well as mild natriuresis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Administration, Oral

Visualization and characterization of gastric contractions using a radionuclide technique.

With the use of the radionuclide gastric-emptying test and a new data processing method, the contraction characteristics of the stomach were analyzed. After ingestion of a radiolabeled test meal, dynamic images of the stomach were acquired and analyzed to determine the frequency, amplitude, and rate of gastric contractions in healthy subjects. The frequency of antral contractions was found to be inversely related with food retention in the stomach; in contrast, the amplitude of the contractions decreased progressively during the course of gastric emptying. The peaks of both antral contraction and filling rate and the time of their occurrence remained constant throughout gastric emptying. The observed patterns of phase distribution and sequential phase changes of the food in the stomach confirmed noninvasively what was already known from invasive technique, i.e., that the proximal stomach does not undergo phasic contractions and that, in the distal stomach, smooth muscle contraction originates in midcorpus and propagates aborally to the pylorus. The scintigraphic test can be used to noninvasively and quantitatively characterize gastric motor function and to delineate the spatial sequence of gastric contractions. This technique can be applied to study the pathophysiology of gastric emptying in various motor disorders.

Adult

Effect of proximal vagotomy and Roux-en-Y diversion on gastric emptying kinetics in asymptomatic patients.

The role of the distal stomach in gastric emptying was studied. Ten patients with proximal gastric vagotomy (PV) and 10 age-matched patients with Roux-en-Y gastro-jejunostomy (R-Y) were compared with 10 healthy controls. Gastric emptying of solids and liquids was determined by the use of Tc-99m SC scrambled eggs and In-111 DTPA. In PV, gastric emptying of both solids and liquids was delayed; the prolongation with solids was mainly accounted for by an abnormal lag phase. In R-Y patients, no lag phase was observed, and the solid emptying curve pattern was characterized by early rapid emptying followed by very slow emptying. Both the solid and liquid phases were prolonged. The lag phase is affected by proximal vagotomy and is mainly determined by the distal stomach, which appears to be essential for normal emptying.

Adult

Intravenous erythromycin dramatically accelerates gastric emptying in gastroparesis diabeticorum and normals and abolishes the emptying discrimination between solids and liquids.

Erythromycin, a macrolide antibiotic, has recently been shown to have a motilin like effect on gastrointestinal muscle strips. In this study, we have evaluated the effect of erythromycin on patients with delayed gastric emptying and healthy subjects using the dual radionuclide technique. Twelve patients with gastroparesis diabeticorum and ten healthy age- and sex-matched controls were studied. Gastric emptying of solids and liquids was determined using 99mTc-SC scrambled egg and 111In-DTPA in water. Following a baseline study and on a separate day, each patient and control received a 15-min i.v. perfusion of erythromycin starting at meal ingestion. Eleven out of the 12 patients were restudied after a 3-wk oral administration. In patients and controls, i.v. erythromycin dramatically accelerated gastric emptying of both solids and liquids which were emptied at the same rate. After chronic oral administration, solid and liquid emptying remained significantly accelerated. Erythromycin appears to be a very powerful gastrokinetic drug. Derived compounds with the gastrokinetic effect and without the antibiotic activity could be useful in dyspeptic patients with delayed gastric emptying.

Diabetes Complications

Risk factors which determine the long term outcome of Neodymium-YAG laser palliation of colorectal carcinoma.

We have analysed the long term results of YAG laser palliation for incurable colorectal carcinoma in 88 patients. Although initial palliation was achieved in 82%, good palliation could only be maintained in 51% and 41% of patients surviving 6 months and 12 months respectively. The relative inefficacy of YAG laser therapy for palliation of rectal cancer is due to the failure to control extraluminal tumour growth, complications of YAG laser therapy and the poor general condition of these elderly patients. Factors influencing the efficacy of palliation, besides life expectancy, included T classification, and length of the neoplastic stricture. Treatment-related mortality due to perforation was 2.3%. YAG laser therapy, applied as the sole therapeutic modality, is effective for short term palliation of incurable colorectal carcinoma, but is not adequate for long term palliation in most patients. Trials should be conducted to study the effect of combined treatment (e.g. laser + radiotherapy) on palliation.

Aged

Modelling the polypeptide backbone with 'spare parts' from known protein structures.

An automatic procedure for building a protein polyalanine backbone from C alpha positions and 'spare parts' retrieved from a data base of 66 high-resolution protein structures is described. Protein backbones are constructed from overlapping fragments of variable length, which allows the backbone of regular secondary structure elements to be built in one block. The procedure is shown to yield backbones which compare very favourably with those from highly refined X-ray structures (r.m.s. deviation between generated and crystal structures less than 1A). The method is furthermore quite insensitive to experimental errors in C alpha positions as well as to the size of the data base, and is seen to yield valuable insight into the relationships between sequence and 3-D structure: one example on triose phosphate isomerase, a beta-barrel protein, shows that beta alpha loops can be considered as structurally more uncommon than alpha beta loops. The 'spare parts' approach is also found to be useful for general-purpose modelling of local structural changes produced by insertion or deletion of residues. It should, however, be used with caution. Crude selection criteria based solely on fragment length and geometric fit to the loop base regions yield realistic backbones in about two-thirds of the test cases (r.m.s. deviations from refined crystal structure approximately 1A). In the remaining cases, sequence information, in particular the presence of glycine residues which tend to adopt more unusual backbone conformations, must be considered to obtain comparable results.

Carboxypeptidases

Estrogen-progesterone treatment of Osler-Weber-Rendu disease.

A 56-year-old woman with Osler-Weber-Rendu disease had longstanding iron deficiency anemia from recurrent melena. Since neither laser photocoagulation nor surgery were successful in stopping the increasing transfusion need, combined estrogen-progesterone therapy was started. Except for slight bleeding from a temporary ileostomy, the bleeding and need for transfusion terminated promptly. This experience confirms that estrogen-progesterone therapy may promote cessation of bleeding gastrointestinal telangiectasias and indicates the need for controlled investigations.

Estradiol Congeners