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Biomedical subjects

S Cascinu

Publications and source records attributed to S Cascinu.

119 records · Page 7Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Influence of 5-fluorouracil and folinic acid on interleukin-18 production in colorectal cancer patients.

AIMS AND BACKGROUND: This study was carried out to evaluate the IL-18 blood concentrations of operated colorectal cancer patients and their possible variation in response to combination chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and folinic acid. METHODS: IL-18 levels were assayed in sera of 18 healthy donors and 18 surgical colorectal cancer patients before and after adjuvant chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil and folinic acid. An ELISA kit for human IL-18 was used for the assay. RESULTS: Colorectal cancer patients showed significantly higher baseline levels of IL-18 than healthy donors (p<0.005). Furthermore, serum IL-18 levels increased significantly with respect to baseline in patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy (p<0.005). CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that treatment with 5-fluorouracil and folinic acid may provoke an increase in IL-18 serum levels in colorectal cancer patients. This increase may help to explain the efficacy of adjuvant chemotherapy with 5-FU in colorectal cancer.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Immunohistochemical telomeric-repeat binding factor-1 expression in gastrointestinal tumors.

The maintenance of telomere length has been hypothesized to be involved in the early steps of cancerogenesis. A physiologic modulation of telomere maintenance is exerted by TRF1 (telomeric-repeat binding factor-1), which deletion permits telomere elongation. Gastrointestinal neoplastic (n=19) and non-neoplastic tissues (six inflammatory disease and six normal mucosa distant from tumor at least 5 cm) were studied, by immunohistochemistry, for TRF1 expression, by using a polyclonal antibody anti-TRF1. Differentiated and not proliferating epithelial secretory cells (Ki67 and p53 negative cells) were stained by anti-TRF1, which did not stain tumor cells in all cases but one (p<0.0001). p53 was expressed by 26% of tumor cases. Inflammatory gastrointestinal non-tumor tissues showed lower expression of TRF1 in epithelial secreting cells compared to normal tissues (p=0.008). These preliminary data suggest that down-regulation of the TRF1 expression in tumor cells may be involved in cell immortalization as an initial step in gastrointestinal carcinogenesis (before p53 alteration), and may open new perspectives, when confirmed, in gastrointestinal tumor prognosis.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Angiosuppression and chemotherapy: strategies aimed at their integration in cancer patients.

A number of antiangiogenic agents have been developed as pharmaceuticals and are currently being tested in clinical studies. Potential strategies to enhance the activity of angiogenesis inhibitors could be to combine them, or better still, to administer them either sequentially or concurrently with cytotoxic drugs. Chemotherapy would be a more appropriate initial choice for patients with advanced disease since cytostatic agents can induce a fast regression of the tumor and cancer-related symptoms. Antiangiogenic treatment could be used after chemotherapy in patients who achieve disease remission to prolong the time to progression, the symptom-free interval and the overall survival. Antiangiogenic treatment is likely to attain an important role in the adjuvant setting. In fact, it could be used for prolonged periods after radical surgery to maintain dormancy of residual tumor cells. In spite of these promising preclinical data, several points need to be clarified before the initiation of clinical trials. In fact, certain misconceptions may interfere with their optimum design and result analysis.

Angiogenesis Inhibitors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Primary breast carcinoma: immunocytochemical and immunohistochemical evaluation of biological parameters.

Fine needle aspiration biopsy is an effective procedure for the diagnosis and biological characterization of carcinoma of the breast. The authors compared the immunocytochemical expression of oestrogen receptor and progesterone receptor, Ki67 antigen and p53 protein, evaluated in pre-surgical fine needle aspirates, with the immunohistochemical results observed in the corresponding histological sections. Fine needle aspirates and paraffin embedded sections obtained from 37 patients with primary carcinoma of the breast were studied by immunocytochemistry and immunohistochemistry, respectively. Percentage agreement between values obtained with cytology and histology was 89.6% for oestrogen receptor, 76.9% for progesterone receptor, 91.3% for Ki67 and 77.7% for p53. The data reported here suggest that the evaluation of biological parameters by fine needle aspiration biopsy may be useful to decide the best medical and surgical treatment for primary breast carcinoma.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Prognostic value of S-phase fraction in T3N0M0 gastric cancer. Implications for adjuvant chemotherapy.

INTRODUCTION: The prognosis of patients with T3N0M0 gastric cancer is still unfavourable and the role of adjuvant chemotherapy is unclear. We addressed this study to evaluate whether the analysis of the S-Phase Fraction (SPF) might have prognostic implications in serosa-positive, node-negative gastric cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Specimens of resected gastric cancer were studied by flow cytometry for SPF analysis. Consecutive patients with stage pT3N0M0, adequate follow-up information and sufficient archival tumor tissue were considered eligible for the study. The tumor SPF indices were related to the timing of recurrences, the relapse rate and the disease-free survival of patients. RESULTS: The analysis was carried out on samples of 137 patients with surgically-resected, stage pT3N0M0 gastric cancer. SPF resulted high and low in 39% and 61% of cases, respectively. Fifty-seven patients relapsed (42%) and early recurrences (within 18 months after surgery) occurred more frequently among cases with high SPF (p < .03). Patients with high SPF tumors showed a worse relapse rate and disease-free survival than patients with low SPF tumors. (p < .005). CONCLUSION: The SPF analysis showed prognostic differences among patients with stage pT3N0M0 gastric cancer. These data may be of value in the planning of future adjuvant chemotherapy trials in gastric cancer.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Paraneoplastic syndromes: a review].

Modern oncology often obtains good results against earlier neoplasms, whilst it's still in difficulties against the advanced ones. The knowledge of paraneoplastic syndromes is crucial both to cure patients and to do an earlier diagnosis. When we recognize a paraneoplastic syndrome that comes before the clinic beginning of a neoplasm, perhaps we save a life. This review discusses all the main paraneoplastic syndromes, focusing mainly on their clinical aspect and reminding the most commonly associated cancers.

ACTH Syndrome, Ectopic↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The clinical impact of FEM regimen (5-fluorouracil, 4-epidoxorubicin and mitomycin-C) in advanced gastric cancer patients.

The activity of FEM regimen in metastatic gastric cancer patients was assessed in seventy-seven patients receiving, as palliative treatment, 5FU 600 mg/m2 i.v. on days 1, 8, 29, 36; epiADR 70 mg/m2 i.v. on days 1, 29; MIT-C 10 mg/m2 i.v. on days 1, 29. Cycles were repeated every 58 days. One patient achieved a complete response and 12 a partial response, resulting in an overall response rate of 16% (95% CI: 8% to 24%). Median remission duration was 6 months. Median survival time for all patients was 8 months. Side-effects were mild and principally in the form of leukopenia (three episodes grade III). Our results support the recent findings about the lack of effectiveness of this regimen. Although it is a safe and well tolerable chemotherapeutic combination, FEM regimen should not be recommended as routinary treatment for gastric cancer patients who are not eligible for clinical trials.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Neuroprotectant drugs in cisplatin neurotoxicity.

Cisplatin (CDDP) is one among the most effective and widely used anticancer drugs. Its use is, however, often limited by its peripheral neurotoxicity, which may be severely disabling and sometimes not reversible. To prevent or reduce CDDP peripheral neurotoxicity several "neuroprotective" drugs have been proposed. This goal is of extreme importance in the treatment of cancer patients, especially in view of the better results obtained by anticancer chemotherapy in terms of longer disease-free survival which has made even more crucial than in the past the point of the quality of life of the long-surviving patients. The data of pre-clinical and clinical studies with neuroprotectant agents are often conflicting, in some cases because of inadequate methods of evaluation and/or study design used to examine their effectiveness. The aims of this review will be 1) to discuss and describe the most appropriate methods of evaluation of CDDP and neuro-protectant drugs in experimental in vitro and in vivo pre-clinical studies 2) to evaluate critically the results of the clinical trials reported so far with the combined treatment and 3) to explore the possible future strategies to achieve neuroprotection during high-dose CDDP treatment in humans.

Adrenocorticotropic Hormone↗