A community-based lung cancer rapid tissue donation protocol provides high-quality drug-resistant specimens for proteogenomic analyses.

BACKGROUND: For the advancement of cancer research, the collection of tissue specimens from drug-resistant tumors after targeted therapy is crucial. Although patients with lung cancer are often provided targeted therapy, post-therapy specimens are not routinely collected due to the risks of collection, limiting the study of targeted therapy resistance mechanisms. Posthumous rapid tissue donation (RTD) is an expedient collection process that provides an opportunity to understand treatment-resistant lung cancers. METHODS: Consent to participate in the thoracic RTD protocol was obtained during patient care. When death occurred, tumor and paired non-tumor, cytology, and blood specimens were collected within 48 hours and preserved as formalin-fixed and frozen specimens. Tissue sections were evaluated with hematoxylin and eosin staining and immunohistochemistry (IHC) against multiple biomarkers, including various programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) clones. Next-generation sequencing was performed on 13 specimens from 5 patients. RESULTS: Postmortem specimens (N = 180) were well preserved from 9 patients with lung cancer. PD-L1 IHC revealed heterogeneity within and between tumors. An AGK-BRAF fusion was newly identified in tumor from a donor with a known echinoderm microtubule-associated protein-like 4 to anaplastic lymphoma kinase (EML4-ALK) fusion and history of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor therapy. RNA expression analysis revealed a clonal genetic origin of metastatic cancer cells. CONCLUSIONS: Post-therapy specimens demonstrated PD-L1 heterogeneity and an acyl glycerol kinase to B-rapidly accelerated fibrosarcoma (AGK-BRAF) fusion in a patient with an EML4-ALK-positive lung adenocarcinoma as a potential resistance mechanism to ALK inhibitor therapy. Rapid tissue donation collection of postmortem tissue from lung cancer patients is a novel approach to cancer research that enables studies of molecular evolution and drug resistance.

Fatalities Involving Carfentanil and Furanyl Fentanyl: Two Case Reports.

Carfentanil is a fentanyl analog frequently used in large animal veterinary medicine. Recently, carfentanil has been discovered in postmortem and antemortem cases throughout the United States in the heroin supply either alone or mixed with heroin and/or other fentanyl analogs. The potency of carfentanil is ~10,000 times greater than morphine and 100 times greater than fentanyl. In two recent cases, carfentanil was identified and ruled to be the cause of death, either alone or in combination with other drugs. Case 1 involved a known heroin user. He was discovered slumped over in a running van blocking the bays of a carwash. Two syringes, a spoon with cotton and residue and a yellow baggie of powder were found in the van. Case 2 involved a man living in a tent in a park with his mother. He was last heard from by a sister via phone who stated he sounded very intoxicated and by his mother who noted him to be "itching all over" and upset over his girlfriend. When the mother returned from work, she discovered him unresponsive with a small baggie of brown powder next to him. Routine drug and volatile screening tests were performed on heart blood using headspace gas chromatography, immunoassay and gas chromatography mass spectrometry methods. Results from initial testing on both cases did not have any significant toxicological findings. However, due to the history, scene photos, toxicological findings in blood and urine and analysis of the drug paraphernalia on one of the cases which identified carfentanil and furanyl fentanyl, fentanyl analogues were suspected. Heart blood was sent to a reference laboratory for carfentanil and furanyl fentanyl analysis. Case 1 had a carfentanil concentration of 1.3 ng/mL and a furanyl fentanyl concentration of 0.34 ng/mL. Case 2 had a carfentanil concentration of 0.12 ng/mL.

Three fatal intoxications due to methylone.

We present three fatal intoxications of methylone, a cathinone derivative. Blood was analyzed with a routine alkaline liquid-liquid extraction and analyzed by gas chromatography coupled with a mass spectrometer (GC-MS). Methylone was identified by a full scan mass spectral comparison to an analytical standard of methylone. For a definitive and conclusive confirmation and quantitation, methylone was also derivatized with heptafluorobutyric anhydride and analyzed by GC-MS. In all three fatalities, the deceased exhibited seizure-like activity and elevated body temperatures (103.9, 105.9 and 107°F) before death. Two of the three cases also exhibited metabolic acidosis. One of the three cases had prolonged treatment and hospitalization before death with symptoms similar to sympathomimetic toxicity, including metabolic acidosis, rhabdomyolysis, acute renal failure and disseminated intravascular coagulation. The laboratory results for this patient over the 24 h period of hospitalization were significant for increased lactate, liver transaminases, creatinine, myoglobin, creatine kinase and clotting times, and decreased pH, glucose and calcium. Peripheral blood methylone concentrations in the three fatal cases were 0.84, 3.3 and 0.56 mg/L. In conlusion, peripheral blood methylone concentrations in excess of 0.5 mg/L may result in death due to its toxic properties, which can include elevated body temperature and other sympathomimetic-like symptoms.