Have we made progress in taking care of adolescents and young adults with cancer? Results of a European multi-professional survey.

BACKGROUND: It is well documented that traditional health care models do not meet the specific needs of Adolescents and Young Adults (AYA) cancer patients. METHODS: We explore a map of the development of age-specific AYA cancer care across Europe, from the perspective of healthcare professionals with an interest in AYA care, in order to understand the specific challenges and map progress over time. An on-line survey was developed by international professional cancer organisations. RESULTS: We had 377 respondents from 60 countries. The majority of respondents were physicians 298 (79%), a minority of survey respondents (39, 10.4%) work exclusively with AYA patients, most respondents declared substantial and routine clinical service collaborations to provide care and treatment to AYA with cancer. Policy for the multidisciplinary management of AYA cancer patients commonly appears in Europe now, and was reported by 234 (78.52%) respondents. Specific professional training for AYA cancer care is not uniformly available. CONCLUSION: There is considerable opportunity for many organisations to work together in raising the profile of AYA cancer related issues, in providing education and in encouraging research and collaboration.

MiRNA and LncRNA as Potential Biomarkers in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: A Review.

Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) include a diverse range of RNA species, including microRNAs (miRNAs) and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). MiRNAs, ncRNAs of approximately 19-25 nucleotides in length, are involved in gene expression regulation either via degradation or silencing of the messenger RNAs (mRNAs) and have roles in multiple biological processes, including cell proliferation, differentiation, migration, angiogenesis, and apoptosis. LncRNAs, which are longer than 200 nucleotides, comprise one of the largest and most heterogeneous RNA families. LncRNAs can activate or repress gene expression through various mechanisms, acting alone or in combination with miRNAs and other molecules as part of various pathways. Until recently, most research has focused on individual lncRNA and miRNA functions as regulators, and there is limited available data on ncRNA interactions relating to the tumor growth, metastasis, and therapy of cancer, acting either on mRNA alone or as competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) networks. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) represents approximately 10%-20% of all breast cancers (BCs) and is highly heterogenous and more aggressive than other types of BC, for which current targeted treatment options include hormonotherapy, PARP inhibitors, and immunotherapy; however, no targeted therapies for TNBC are available, partly because of a lack of predictive biomarkers. With advances in proteomics, new evidence has emerged demonstrating the implications of dysregulation of ncRNAs in TNBC etiology. Here, we review the roles of lncRNAs and miRNAs implicated in TNBC, including their interactions and regulatory networks. Our synthesis provides insight into the mechanisms involved in TNBC progression and has potential to aid the discovery of new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.

Serum expression levels of miR-17, miR-21, and miR-92 as potential biomarkers for recurrence after adjuvant chemotherapy in colon cancer patients.

The present study examined whether miR-17, miR-21, miR-29a, and miR-92 that are dysregulated in colon cancer (CC) can serve as potential predictive markers for relapse of disease after radical surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy. Real-time reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used to measure the expression levels of the miRNAs in serum samples from 37 patients with CC and 7 healthy individuals, tested as a control group. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was then used to evaluate the predictive performance of the four miRNAs alone or in combination and compare it with carcinoembryonic antigen. The expression of miR-17, miR-21 and miR-92 were significantly higher in serum of patients with disease relapse. The AUCs for miR-17, miR-21, miR-92 for Nx patients were 0.844, 0.948, and 0.935, respectively (p < 0.05). Combining the four miRNAs for stage III patients increased the diagnostic performance, yielding an AUC of 0.881, with a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 85.7% (p < 0.05). Our study suggests that the expression levels of serum miR-21, miR-17, and miR-92 in patients with CC who underwent radical surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy may have diagnostic value for differentiating between recurred and non-recurred patients.