Osteopathic Medical Student Administered Smoking Cessation Counseling is an Effective Tool.

BACKGROUND: Physician counseling on the risks of tobacco smoking and the benefits of cessation has been shown to be an effective method of increasing the rate of smoking cessation. Using the "Help Your Patients Quit Smoking: A Coaching Guide" also referred to as the "7A's of Smoking Cessation" guideline from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is thought to be effective to convey the importance of smoking cessation. AIM: To study the efficacy of the "7A's of Smoking Cessation" guideline counseling conducted by osteopathic medical students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Osteopathic medical students were trained to counsel smokers for 3-10 min based on New York City Department of Health's "7A's of Smoking Cessation" guidelines by a licensed physician. Students then counseled health fair participants who were cigarette smokers for 3-10 min. Postcounseling, participants were administered an 4 question survey to evaluate the effect counseling had on their desire to quit smoking. Survey data were collected and analyzed. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained for this study. RESULTS: A total of 13 anonymous health fair participants who were also smokers were administered both counseling sessions and surveys. 11/13 (84.6%) participants stated that the session motivated them to quit smoking. 9/13 (69.2%) participants responded that they were now motivated to discuss smoking cessation with their doctor after being counseled. Of these participants 12/13 (92.3%) had previously attempted to quit smoking without success. CONCLUSION: Participants reported an increased willingness to stop smoking after being counseled by osteopathic medical students. Participants also reported an increased motivation to discuss smoking cessation with their physician. These findings indicate that smoking cessation counseling administered by osteopathic medical students effectively in encouraging smokers to consider reduction or cessation of tobacco use.

Mapping of novel peptides of WT-1 and presenting HLA alleles that induce epitope-specific HLA-restricted T cells with cytotoxic activity against WT-1(+) leukemias.

The Wilms tumor protein (WT-1) is widely recognized as a tumor antigen that is expressed differentially by several malignancies. However, WT-1 peptides known to induce tumoricidal T cells are few. In the present study, we evaluated T-cell responses of 56 healthy donors to in vitro sensitization with autologous APCs loaded with a pool of overlapping 15-mer peptides spanning the sequence of WT-1. Thereafter, we mapped the WT-1 peptides eliciting responses in each individual, defined the immunogenic peptides, and identified their presenting HLA alleles. We report 41 previously unreported epitopes of WT-1: 5 presented by class II and 36 by class I alleles, including 10 that could be presented by more than 1 class I allele. IFNγ(+) T cells responding to 98% of the class I and 60% of the class II epitopes exhibited HLA-restricted cytotoxicity against peptide-loaded targets. T cells specific for 36 WT-1 peptides were evaluable for leukemocidal activity, of which 27 (75%) lysed WT-1(+) leukemic targets sharing their restricting HLA allele. Each epitope identified induced T-cell responses in most donors sharing the epitopes' presenting allele; these responses often exceeded responses to flanking peptides predicted to be more immunogenic. This series of immunogenic epitopes of WT-1 should prove useful for immunotherapies targeting WT-1(+) malignancies.