Author Interviews, Chemotherapy, Gastrointestinal Disease, Hepatitis - Liver Disease, MD Anderson / 10.12.2013

Harrys A. Torres, MD, FACP Assistant Professor Director of Hepatitis C Clinic Department of Infectious Diseases, Infection Control and Employee Health The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer CenterMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Harrys A. Torres, MD, FACP Assistant Professor, Director of Hepatitis C Clinic Department of Infectious Diseases, Infection Control and Employee Health The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Torres: The main findings of the study were that patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection who were successfully treated with antivirals and attained sustained virologic response (SVR) did not have a relapse of HCV infection after receiving immunosuppressive chemotherapy for cancer. Patients in the study received different chemotherapeutic agents, including rituximab and systemic corticosteroids. Durability of SVR was maintained up to 14 years after chemotherapy in cancer patients. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Chemotherapy / 06.11.2013

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Shuichi Hironaka, MD Clinical Trial Promotion Department, Chiba Cancer Center 666-2 Nitona-cho Chuo-ku Chiba-shi Chiba, 260-8717 Japan MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Hironaka: This is the first randomized phase III trial comparing paclitaxel and irinotecan in second-line chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer. This study showed that no statistically significant difference was observed between paclitaxel and irinotecan for overall survival. However, both are reasonable second-line treatment options for advanced gastric cancer. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Chemotherapy, MD Anderson, Vanderbilt / 10.10.2013

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hiroko Masuda MD

Morgan Welch Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Program and Clinic; Departments of 2Breast Medical Oncology, 3Bioinformatics and Computational Biology The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas;

W. Fraser Symmans, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Pathology, Unit 85, 1515 Holcombe Blvd., Houston, TX 77030-4009;

Naoto T. Ueno, MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Blvd., Unit 1354, Houston, TX 77030.

MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?

Answer: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) could be classified into 7 subtypes: basal-like 1 (BL1), basal-like 2 (BL2), immunomodulatory (IM), mesenchymal (M),mesenchymal stem-like (MSL), luminal androgen receptor (LAR), and unstable (UNS). Using cluster analysis, Lehmann and Bauer et al. identified these TNBC subtypes in 21 public mRNA gene expression profiles of breast cancer. However, the clinical relevancy of these novel molecular subtypes has not been established. To establish the clinical relevancy, we determined if the subtypes of TNBC have different rates of pathological complete response (pCR) to standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens. In this study, we confirmed that TNBC is heterogeneous and that pCR differs by TNBC subtype using the algorithm proposed by Lehmann and Bauer et al. The BL1 subtype had the highest pCR rate (52%), and BL2 and LAR had the lowest pCR rates (0% and 10%, respectively). TNBC subtype was an independent predictor of pCR status (P=0.022) via a likelihood ratio test. To our knowledge, this was the first study to show that the TNBC subtype can serve as an independent predictor of pCR status in patients who received standard chemotherapy regimens. This confirms the possible clinical relevance of the 7 molecular subtypes, and these subtypes may lead to innovative clinical trials of personalized medicine for patients with TNBC. (more…)

Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Chemotherapy, Hormone Therapy / 23.04.2013

MedicalResearch.com eInterview with Andrew Weickhardt, MBBS, DMedSc, FRACP MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Weickhardt: The study was hoping to confirm our earlier published observation that crizotinib use led to low testosterone in male patients. The earlier study was based on our observation of symptoms of low testosterone in some patients treated with the drug, and had suggested strongly that crizotinib led to rapid decrease in testosterone levels, however this was based only on a single center's patients, and only 19 patients. We hoped to do this by surveying a larger population of crizotinib treated patients across multiple institutions. We serially measured several relevant hormones. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Cancer Research, Depression, Mental Health Research / 28.03.2013

MedicalResearch.com Interview with Mylin A. Torres, M.D. Assistant Professor Department of Radiation Oncology Emory University School of Medicine Atlanta, GA 30322 MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?  Dr. Torres: Radiation treatment for breast cancer is not associated with increased depressive symptoms, but of disease and treatment-related factors, prior chemotherapy treatment is a significant predictor of depression before and after radiation treatment.  Prior chemotherapy treatment was associated with inflammatory mediators, including nuclear factor-kappa B DNA binding, soluble tumor necrosis factor-alpha receptor 2, and interleukin-6, which predicted for depressive symptoms after radiation on univariate analysis. (more…)