Histoplasmosis is a fungal disease that is endemic in

Patients with gastric cancer presenting with signet-ring histology, vascular invasion, or visceral metastasis appear to be at higher risk for the development of peritoneal carcinomatosis.

Although the incidence of breast cancer has been declining in recent years, the disease is still one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in women. Recently, breast cancer has been treated with innovative approaches that use hormone-sensitive therapies. This is because in at least one-third of breast cancers, estrogens mediated via the estrogen receptor pathway act as endocrine growth factors. Fulvestrant has been studied as both first- and second-line therapy for locally advanced and metastatic breast cancer, but few studies have shown its effect as third-line therapy alone. To observe the disease time to progression (TTP) obtained with fulvestrant when used on metastatic breast cancer as first-, second-, and also third-line therapy. We also aimed to correlate the TTP obtained with fulvestrant with hormone receptor, HER2 expression, and metastatic site. This was a cohort study that retrospectively examined medical records of 73 postmenopausal women with advanced breast cancer who were treated with fulvestrant (250 mg/month i.m. injection) and followed at the Department of Medical Oncology at Hospital do Cancer A. C. Camargo in São Paulo, Brazil from August 2003 to December 2006. The median TTP with fulvestrant was about 11 months. When used as the first-line therapy, TTP was about 13 months; when used as second-line, TTP was about 6 months; and when used as third-line, it was about 12 months. No statistically significant difference was observed regarding the therapy line. In patients with positive ER tumors, TTP was 11 months. No significant difference in TTP was observed in negative ER tumors (TTP = 10 months). In patients with positive PgR tumors, TTP was 13 months and for negative PgR, TTP was 6 months (P = 0.008). According to the HER2 status, the TTP was 5 months for HER2+ and 10 months for HER2-. Our findings indicate that fulvestrant is an effective alternative for treatment of metastatic breast cancer.

No abstract

e11503 Background: Factors predictive of response to anthracyclines can help selecting patients who really benefit from its use. HER2 amplification, TOP2A aberrations, and changes in tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMP-1) expression in breast carcinomas have been shown to be associated with incremental benefit from anthracycline chemotherapy. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data on the outcome of patients undergoing neoadjuvant anthracycline-based chemotherapy. Evaluated nuclear TOP2A protein expression and cytoplasmatic TIMP-1 expression in tumor cells in breast cancer biopsies by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and reviewed the pathological responses after completion of neoadjuvant treatment. Results: From 2002 to 2012, data from 97 patients was reviewed. Sixty four patients had the paraffin blocks corresponding to the pre-treatment biopsy to analysis the TOP2A and forty nine to TIMP-1. Patients were considered positive for TOP2A if the level of expression in IHC was higher than 20% and graduated TIMP-1 as weak, moderate or strong expression. Thirty percent of the patients achieved pathologic complete response (pCR) in pos-treatment surgical specimens. There was an association between TOP2A IHC expression and tumor pathological complete response (pCR) with higher pCR in TOPO2A positive tumors (pCR 44% vs 14%; p=0.008). There was no association between TIMP-1 expression and pCR. A moderate or strong TIMP-1 expression was associated with higher disease-free survival in multivariate analysis (p=0,005). No difference in PFS and OS was observed between patients with pCR after a median follow-up of 36 months. Conclusions: The expression of TOP2A seems to be a promising predictive biomarker of pCR to antracycline-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy in HER2 breast cancer. The predictive value and form of assessment of TIMP-1 remain uncertain. These findings should be better evaluated in prospective neoadjuvant trials.