Circulating miR-200c and miR-141 and outcomes in patients with breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: The deregulation of microRNAs in both tumours and blood has led to the search for microRNAs to indicate the presence of cancer and predict prognosis. We hypothesize the deregulation of miR-200c/miR-141 in the whole blood can identify breast cancer (BC), and could be developed into a prognostic signature. METHODS: The expression of miR-200c and miR-141 were examined in bloods (57 stage I-IV BC patients and 20 age-matched controls) by quantitative reverse-transcription PCR. The associations of circulating microRNAs with clinic and pathological characteristics were analysed. Their effects on survival were analysed by the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regressions. RESULTS: MiR-200c was down regulated (P < 0.0001) in the blood of BC patients, yielded an area under the ROC curve of 0.79 (90% sensitivity, 70.2% specificity) in discriminating BC from controls. Circulating miR-141 was not discriminating. MiR-200c and miR-141 in the blood of BC patients were inversely correlated (P = 0.019). The miR-200c levels were numerically higher in stage IV and tumours with lower MIB-1. MiR-141 was significantly higher in the blood of patients with stage I-III, lymph node metastasis, and HER2 negative tumours. High blood expression of miR-200c and/or low expression of miR-141 was associated with unfavourable overall survival (hazard ratio, 3.89; [95% CI: 1.28-11.85]) and progression-free survival (3.79 [1.41-10.16]) independent of age, stage and hormonal receptors. CONCLUSIONS: Circulating miR-200c and miR-141 were deregulated in BC comparing with controls. Furthermore, miR-200c and miR-141 were independent prognostic factors and associated with distinct outcomes of BC patients.

Radium-223 dichloride: a new paradigm in the treatment of prostate cancer.

Radionuclides have been widely used for cancer treatment. Recently, new research about radium-223 dichloride has been conducted in prostate cancer, which reveals that it is the first radiopharmaceutical to demonstrate an improvement in overall survival and time to first symptomatic skeletal event in patients with castration resistant prostate cancer with symptomatic bone metastases. This fact has created a new paradigm in the treatment of prostate cancer landscape, where only chemotherapy and hormone therapy had a role, while ß-emitters had been confined exclusively to the role of pain relief with no impact on survival. The aim of this review is to outline current treatment approaches for advanced prostate cancer with a focus on the role of radium-223 dichloride, reviewing patients' profile that make them suitable to therapy and chances for further studies.

Circulating miR-200c as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for gastric cancer.

BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs are aberrantly expressed and correlate with tumourigenesis and the progression of solid tumours. The miR-200 family determines the epithelial phenotype of cancer cells and regulates invasiveness and migration. Thus, we hypothesised that the quantitative detection of the miR-200 family as epithelial-specific microRNAs in the blood could be a useful clinical biomarker for gastric cancer (GC). METHODS: We initially validated the expression levels of miR-200a, 200b, 200c and 141 in GC cell lines (n = 2) and blood from healthy controls (n = 19) using real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR). The microarray expression profiles of the miR-200 family in 160 paired samples of non-tumour gastric mucosae and GC were downloaded through ArrayExpress and analysed. MiR-200c was selected for clinical validation. The qRT-PCR prospective assessment of miR-200c was performed using 67 blood samples (52 stage I-IV GC patients and 15 controls); the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC) was estimated. The Kaplan-Meier and Breslow-Wilcoxon tests were used to assess the correlation of miR-200c with overall and progression-free survival (OS and PFS). Multivariate analyses were performed using the Cox model. RESULTS: The miR-200c blood expression levels in GC patients were significantly higher than in normal controls (p = 0.018). The AUC-ROC was 0.715 (p = 0.012). The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy rates of 65.4%, 100% and 73.1%, respectively, were observed. The levels of miR-200c in the blood above the cutoff defined by the ROC curve was found in 17.6% of stage I-II GC patients, 20.6% of stage III patients and 67.7% of stage IV patients (p < 0.001). The miR-200c expression levels were not associated with clinical or pathological characteristics or recent surgical procedures. There was a correlation (p = 0.016) with the number of lymph node metastases and the increased expression levels of miR-200c in blood were significantly associated with a poor OS (median OS, 9 vs 24 months; p = 0.016) and PFS (median PFS, 4 vs 11 months; p = 0.044). Multivariate analyses confirmed that the upregulation of miR-200c in the blood was associated with OS (HR = 2.24; p = 0.028) and PFS (HR = 2.27; p = 0.028), independent of clinical covariates. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that increased miR-200c levels are detected in the blood of gastric cancer patients. MiR-200c has the potential to be a predictor of progression and survival.

Stem cell and lung cancer development: blaming the Wnt, Hh and Notch signalling pathway.

Primary lung cancer may arise from the central (bronchial) or peripheral (bronchiolo-alveolar) compartments. However the origins of the different histological types of primary lung cancer are not well understood. Stem cells are believed to be crucial players in tumour development and there is much interest in identifying those compartments that harbour stem cells involved in lung cancer. Although the role of stem cells in carcinogenesis is not well characterised, emerging evidence is providing new insights into this process. Numerous studies have indicated that lung cancer is not a result of a sudden transforming event but a multistep process in which a sequence of molecular changes result in genetic and morphological aberrations. The exact sequence of molecular events involved in lung carcinogenesis is not yet well understood, therefore deeper knowledge of the aberrant stem cell fate signalling pathway could be crucial in the development of new drugs against the advanced setting.

Renal cell carcinoma: complete pathological response in a patient with gastric metastasis of renal cell carcinoma.

A 75-year-old-man, with a 2-month history of abdominal pain, underwent a standard diagnostic workup that included a CT scan that showed a large right renal mass and subcentimeter nodes in the right and left lung lobes. In December 2003, the patient underwent right nephrectomy with adrenalectomy and a diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma (pT3N0M0 stage) was made. No further treatment was proposed and patient was followed up regularly. In October 2006, the annual gastrointestinal endoscopy showed asymptomatic multilobulated and polypoid masses in the gastric fundus and gastric body that corresponded to metastasis of the renal carcinoma that had been resected three years ago. Surgical treatment was refused and oral treatment with sunitinib (50 mg/day consecutively for 4 weeks followed by 2 weeks off) was initiated. Patient completed one cycle and development of acute toxicity (grade 3 asthenia, anorexia and mucositis) led to treatment interruption. After recovering from acute toxicity, the patient was proposed to reinitiate treatment with dose reduction, but he refused any medical treatment. At the follow-up visit, three months later, the gastrointestinal endoscopy showed four unspecific 2 mm nodules without malignant evidence. The whole-body CT did not reveal any other abnormality except for the known lung nodes. PET scan six months after treatment confirmed complete gastric response.

Origin of renal cell carcinomas.

Cancer is a heritable disorder of somatic cells: environment and heredity are both important in the carcinogenic process. The primal force is the "two hits" of Knudson's hypothesis, which has proved true for many tumours, including renal cell carcinoma. Knudson et al. [1, 2] recognised that familial forms of cancer might hold the key to the identification of important regulatory elements known as tumour-suppressor genes. Their observations (i.e., that retinoblastoma tend to be multifocal in familial cases and unifocal in sporadic presentation) led them to propose a two-hit theory of carcinogenesis. Furthermore, Knudson postulated that patients with the familial form of the cancer would be born with one mutant allele and that all cells in that organ or tissue would be at risk, accounting for early onset and the multifocal nature of the disease. In contrast, sporadic tumours would develop only if a mutation occurred in both alleles within the same cell, and, as each event would be expected to occur with low frequency, most tumours would develop late in life and in a unifocal manner [3, 4]. The kidney is affected in a variety of inherited cancer syndromes. For most of them, both the oncogene/tumour-suppressor gene involved and the respective germline mutations have been identified. Each of the inherited syndromes predisposes to distinct types of renal carcinoma. Families with hereditary predisposition to cancer continue to provide a unique opportunity for the identification and characterisation of genes involved in carcinogenesis. A surprising number of genetic syndromes predispose to the development of renal cell carcinoma, and genes associated with five of these syndromes have been already identified: VHL, MET, FH, BHD and HRPT2. Few cancers have as many different types of genetic predisposition as renal cancer, although to date only a small proportion of renal cell cancers can be explained by genetic predisposition.