Efficacy of Neoadjuvant Therapy With Cisplatin Plus Mitomycin C in BRCA1-Mutated Ovarian Cancer.

OBJECTIVES: Cisplatin and mitomycin C exert high activity towards BRCA1-deficient cells. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a combination of these drugs in hereditary BRCA1-associated ovarian cancer (OC). METHODS: Twelve OC patients, who could not be treated by primary debulking surgery owing to extensive tumor spread, were given neoadjuvant cisplatin (100 mg/m) and mitomycin C (10 mg/m) every 4 weeks for 3 (n = 9), 2 (n = 2), or 4 (n = 1) cycles. RESULTS: The decrease of tumor burden and complete surgical cytoreduction were achieved in all patients. Pathologic complete response, defined as the absence of tumor cells in surgically removed tissues, was observed in 2 (17%) of 12 cases. Retrospective analysis of 62 OC in BRCA1 mutation carriers subjected to conventional neoadjuvant chemotherapy schemes revealed 36 objective tumor responses (58%) and 37 instances (60%) of complete cytoreductive surgery; however, none of these patients demonstrated pathologic complete response. CONCLUSIONS: The combination of cisplatin plus mitomycin C showed promising results in BRCA1-driven OC and therefore deserves further clinical evaluation.

Prevalence of H. pylori Infection and Atrophic Gastritis in a Population-based Screening with Serum Biomarker Panel (GastroPanel®) in St. Petersburg.

BACKGROUND/AIM: Russian Federation is among the high-incidence countries for gastric cancer (GC), with the incidence being projected to continue increasing. Using a non-invasive blood test with four stomach-specific biomarkers (pepsinogen-I (PG-I) and -II (PG-II), amidated gastrin-17 (G-17) and Helicobacter pylori (HP) IgG antibodies) in a hospital-based screening setting, we aimed to determine the prevalence of GC risk conditions: HP-infection and atrophic gastritis (AG). PATIENTS AND METHODS: A population-derived cohort of 918 asymptomatic subjects (646 women and 272 men) with a mean age of 51.8 years (range=26-83) was examined with the GastroPanel® (GP) test. GP results were verified by gastroscopy and biopsies (the Updated Sydney System (USS) classification for all test-positive AG cases and for random 5% test-negatives (n=263) to correct for the verification bias. RESULTS: Of the 918 subjects, only 199 (21.7%) tested completely normal, while 76.7% (704/918) had HP-infection. Altogether, in 99 subjects (10.8%), GP suggested AG: atrophic gastritis in the antrum (AGA) (n=21), atrophic gastritis in the corpus (AGC) (n=69) or atrophic pangastritis (AGpan) (n=9). The overall concordance between GP and USS classification was 82.5% (217/263) with weighted kappa intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC)=0.875 (95% confidence interval (CI)=0.840-0.901). The sensitivity/specificity balance in receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis for PG-I as a marker of moderate/severe AGC (AGC2+) had area under the curve (AUC)=0.895 (95%CI=0.837-0.953). Using the AGC2+ end-point, verification bias-corrected specificity of PGI reached 96.4% (95%CI=94.7-97.9) and that of PGI/PGII ratio 94.6% (95%CI=92.6-96.3), with inevitable erosion in sensitivities. CONCLUSION: While capable of detecting the subjects at risk for GC (HP and/or AG), GP should be the cost-effective means to break the current ominous trend in GC incidence in Russian Federation.