Octreotide ameliorates dermal fibrosis in bleomycin-induced scleroderma

Background/aim: Insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I is a differentiation and growth factor. Antifibrotic action of octreotide has been reported in pulmonary fibrosis. The present study aimed to research the prophylactic and therapeutic potential of octreotide on a bleomycin (BLM)-induced experimental scleroderma model. Materials and methods: Sixty Balb/c female mice were divided into 6 groups. Daily subcutaneous BLM (100 µg) was injected for 3 weeks in groups II and III and for 6 weeks in groups V and VI. Octreotide (100 µg/kg per day) was injected subcutaneously for the first 3 weeks in group III (prophylactic) and the second 3 weeks in group VI (therapeutic). Mice in groups I, II, and III were sacrificed at the end of the third week, while mice in groups IV, V, and VI were sacrificed at the end of the sixth week. Results: Repeated BLM applications increased dermal inflammatory cell counts and dermal thickness, and led to dermal fibrosis at both the third and sixth weeks. Moreover, mRNA expressions of TGF-ß1 and IGF binding protein (IGFBP)-3 and -5 were higher in the BLM- injected sham groups. On the other hand, IGFBP-3 and -5 mRNA expressions were significantly decreased in both the prophylactic and therapeutic octreotide groups. Similarly, octreotide decreased dermal inflammatory infiltrations and dermal thickness. Conclusion: Octreotide has antifibrotic actions on experimentally induced dermal fibrosis. It can be suggested that IGF-I plays pathogenic roles, and octreotide is a candidate for research in the treatment of scleroderma.

Platin­based chemotherapy does not improve survival in patients with non­metastatic resected typical carcinoid tumors.

Chemotherapy is controversial in non-metastatic typical carcinoid (TC) tumors. Therefore, it was aimed to evaluate the impact of platin-based chemotherapy on the survival of patients with lung TC. The medical records of patients who underwent surgical resection for non-metastatic TC from 2002 to 2020 at our institution were retrospectively reviewed. Multivariate regression analysis was performed for chemotherapy and prognostic factors in disease-free survival (DFS) in 72 patients. The pathological stages of patients were as follows: 73.6% of the patients were in stage I, 15.3% in stage II and 11.1% in stage III. A total of 5 patients (6.9%) received platin-based chemotherapy and 6 patients (8.3%) had recurrences. The DFS rates at 12, 36 and 60 months were 98.5, 95.1 and 92.5%, respectively. Log-rank testing showed that patients who received chemotherapy and had stage III disease had shorter DFS (P=0.021 for chemotherapy and P<0.001 for stage). However, multivariate analysis revealed that the pathological stage was the only statistically significant factor affecting DFS (P=0.016). Platin-based chemotherapy did not improve DFS, and the eighth edition of TNM (tumor, nodes, metastases) staging did have prognostic value for patients with non-metastatic TC. Although resection has satisfying long-term outcomes, studies on new agents are needed to decrease the recurrence rate, particularly in patients with stage III disease.

Efficacy of chemotherapeutics in classic and non-classic Kaposi sarcoma: A single-center retrospective real-world data.

Kaposi sarcoma is a rare disease and there is a gap in the literature about which chemotherapeutics should be applied, especially for the classical type. We aimed to present our institutional data on the demographic characteristics, treatment, and treatment efficacy in 16 Kaposi sarcoma (KS) patients treated with chemotherapy. We retrospectively analyzed the demographic and clinical characteristics, and the chemotherapeutic agents administered to the 16 KS patients diagnosed in our center and treated with chemotherapy, based on the medical records obtained. The median age, gender, type of KS, site of involvement, cytotoxic agents administered, progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), and safety profiles of the patients were evaluated. The median age at disease onset was 61.07 years (range, 39.4-85.8 years). Among the patients, 1 had immunosuppression-related KS, 4 had AIDS-related KS, and 11 had classical KS. In the first-line cytotoxic therapy, 7 patients received pegylated-liposomal doxorubicin (PLD), 6 patients received paclitaxel, 2 patients received oral etoposide, and 1 patient received the adriamycin, bleomycin, and vincristine regimen. In the Kaplan-Meier analysis, the PFS was 39.9 months (95% CI, 7.7-72.0). In the first-line setting, a significant difference in terms of PFS was observed between the PLD- and paclitaxel-treated groups (not reached vs. 12.8 months, p = 0.033). The OS was 66.1 months (95% CI, 30.2-102.0). The ORR of the 16 patients was 43.8%, and their DCR was 81.3%. No grade 3 or 4 toxicity was observed. This retrospective study showed that PLD seems better than paclitaxel in terms of PFS and response rates and it has shown to have a good safety profile in KS patients.

Low pan-immune-inflammation-value predicts better chemotherapy response and survival in breast cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Blood-based biomarkers reflect systemic inflammation status and have prognostic and predictive value in solid malignancies. As a recently defined biomarker, Pan-Immune-Inflammation-Value (PIV) integrates different peripheral blood cell subpopulations. This retrospective study of collected data aimed to assess whether PIV may predict the pathological complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in Turkish women with breast cancer. The study consisted of 743 patients with breast cancer who were scheduled to undergo NAC before attempting cytoreductive surgery. A pre-treatment complete blood count was obtained in the two weeks preceding NAC, and blood-based biomarkers were calculated from absolute counts of relevant cell populations. The pCR was defined as the absence of tumor cells in both the mastectomy specimen and lymph nodes. Secondary outcome measures included disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). One hundred seven patients (14.4%) had pCR. In receiver operating characteristic analysis, optimal cut-off values for the neutrophile-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte (PLR), PIV, and Ki-67 index were determined as ≥ 2.34, ≥ 0.22, ≥ 131.8, ≥ 306.4, and ≥ 27, respectively. The clinical tumor (T) stage, NLR, MLR, PLR, PIV, estrogen receptor (ER) status, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2) status, and Ki-67 index were significantly associated with NAC response in univariate analyses. However, multivariate analysis revealed that the clinical T stage, PIV, ER status, HER-2 status, and Ki-67 index were independent predictors for pCR. Moreover, the low PIV group patients had significantly better DFS and OS than those in the high PIV group (p = 0.034, p = 0.028, respectively). Based on our results, pre-treatment PIV seems as a predictor for pCR and survival, outperforming NLR, MLR, PLR in predicting pCR in Turkish women with breast cancer who received NAC. However, further studies are needed to confirm our findings.