Famitinib is generally well tolerated. Famitinib demonstrates a wide spectrum of antitumor activities, which warrants further study in renal cell carcinoma, GIST, hepatocellular carcinoma and soft tissue sarcoma. The recommended dose for future phase II clinical trials is 25 mg.

As a specific subtype of breast cancer, Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is associated with worse prognosis and higher tumor aggressiveness than HER2-amplified or hormone receptor positive breast cancers. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), as a non-invasive “liquid biopsy”, is an emerging original blood-based biomarker for early breast cancer diagnosis, monitoring treatment response, and determining prognosis. In TNBC patients, ctDNA has an inherent tendency to characterize tumor heterogeneity and metastasis-specific mutations providing a key alternative to tumor tissue profiling. Several studies have already demonstrated the potential of ctDNA in TNBC patients from early to advanced stages of the disease including diagnosis, therapy decisions and assessment of prognosis. This review provides a critical brief summary of the evidence that gives credence to the utility of ctDNA as a biomarker for its role into clinical management in TNBC.

Tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) is critical in the regulation of inflammation and tumour progression. TNF-α-308G > A is associated with constitutively elevated TNF-α expression. The purpose of this study was to assess the association between TNF-α-308G > A and breast cancer (BC) risk by subtype and the connection between genotypes and clinical features of BC. A total of 768 patients and 565 controls were enrolled in this study, and genotypes were detected using the TaqMan assay. No effect on susceptibility for any BC subtype was found for the TNF-α-308 polymorphism in our study or in the pooled meta-analysis. This polymorphism was shown to be associated with age at menarche in all BC and in progesterone receptor-negative BC. Interestingly, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients with TNF-α-308A had an increased risk of distant tumour metastasis (OR = 3.80, 95% CI: 1.31–11.02, P = 0.009). Multi-regression analysis showed that TNF-α-308A was also a risk factor for distant tumour metastasis after adjustment for tumour size and lymph node metastasis status (OR = 6.26, 95% CI: 1.88–20.87, P = 0.003). These findings indicate that TNF-α might play a distinct role in the progression of TNBC, especially in distant tumour metastasis of TNBC.

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The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of erlotinib plus DC/CIK in maintenance therapy of advanced non-small cell lung cancer. After 4 cycles of the 2-drug regimen treatment with platinum, the 54 patients with non-small cell lung cancer in phase IIIb or IV reached stable or beyond stable stages. The patients were then randomly divided into 2 groups. One group was treated with erlotinib therapy (erlotinib group), and the other was treated with DC/CIK plus erlotinib (DC/CIK plus erlotinib group). The progression-free survival of the erlotinib group and the DC/CIK plus erlotinib group was 3.98 months (95% CI, 3.56-4.40) and 5.02 months (95% CI, 4.32-5.72) (P=0.002), respectively. The median overall survival of the erlotinib group and the DC/CIK plus erlotinib group was 9.9 months (95% CI, 9.1-10.6) and 10.5 months (95% CI, 9.6-11.4) (P=0.29), respectively. The levels of CD3, CD4, and CD8 were significantly different before and after the treatment in the DC/CIK plus erlotinib group, but not in the erlotinib group. There was no significant difference in toxicity between the 2 groups. In conclusion, there was no statistically significant difference in overall survival between DC/CIK plus erlotinib and erlotinib as maintenance therapy. DC/CIK plus erlotinib was well tolerated with a manageable safety profile.

Background Platinum(IV) complexes with inflammation inhibitory properties are much favored in improving antitumor activities. Nanodrug-delivery system as a preferable measure for antitumor therapy are widely explored in platinum(IV) drug delivery. Purpose The aim for this study was to develop novel bovine serum albumin (BSA) nanoparticles (NPs) based on naproxen platinum(IV) complexes to display a synergistic antitumor mechanism targeting cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS). Methods Herein, we reported the preparation of two BSA NPs of naproxen platinum(IV) complexes, and their antitumor activities were investigated in vitro and in vivo. Results Both NPs possessed relatively uniform size and good stability for 30 days in aqueous solution. They exhibited prominent antitumor activities in vitro, and showed great potential in reversing drug resistance. Furthermore, these two NPs played superior tumor growth suppression in vivo in contrast to the free compounds, which were comparable to that of cisplatin and oxaliplatin, but induced lower toxic influences than platinum(II) drugs especially to spleen and liver. Moreover, the naproxen platinum(IV) NPs could decrease tumor inflammation targeting COX-2, MMP-9 and iNOs, and decreasing NO production, which would be in favor of enhancing the antitumor competence, and reducing toxicity. Conclusion Taken together, BSA NPs of naproxen platinum(IV) complexes demonstrated a powerful antitumor efficacy in vitro and in vivo. The platinum(IV) NPs with inflammation inhibitory competence targeting multiple enzymes reported in this work afford a new strategy for the development of antitumor therapy to overcome drawbacks of clinical platinum(II) drugs.

The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy and toxicity of pemetrexed plus dendritic cells (DCs) in patients suffering from stage IIIB or IV lung adenocarcinoma, who had undergone maintenance treatment with gefitinib or erlotinib. Patients who had failed gefitinib or erlotinib maintenance treatment had ECOG performance statuses ranging from 0 to 2.27 patients received pemetrexed plus DCs as second-line treatment. Dosage: 500 mg/m(2) pemetrexed was administered on day 1 of a 21-day cycle. DCs were given for one cycle of 21 days. Three patients (11.1 %) experienced a partial response and 14 patients (51.9 %) showed stable disease. Ten patients (37.0 %) had progressive disease. The median time to progression-free survival (PFS) was 4.8 months [95 % confidence interval (CI) 4.4-5.2], and the median overall survival was 10.7 months (95 % CI 10.3-11.2). In the subgroup analysis, PFS had a significant difference between the low ratio of CD4/CD8 and normal ratio of CD4/CD8, with 4.5 months (95 % CI 4.2-4.9) and 5.0 months (95 % CI 4.5-5.7), (Log Rank = 0.039), respectively. No one patient experienced grade 4 toxicity. A regimen of pemetrexed combined with DCs is marginally effective and well tolerated in patients with stage IIIB or IV lung adenocarcinoma who had received gefitinib or erlotinib first-line treatment.

This study was conducted to evaluate the toxicity and efficacy of pemetrexed plus dendritic cells (DCs) when administered as third-line treatment for metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). All patients in the study group had previously failed first-line treatment with 5-fluorouracil and cisplatin-based regimens, as well as second-line treatment with taxane-based regimens. A total of 31 patients were treated with pemetrexed (500 mg/m2) plus DCs on day 1, every 3 weeks. DCs were given for one cycle of 21 days. Thirty patients were evaluated for their response. No patient had a complete response, three patients (10.0%) had a partial response, ten patients (33.3%) had stable disease, and 17 patients (56.7%) had progressive disease. The overall response rate was 10.0%. The median progression-free survival (PFS) time was 2.9 months (95% CI, 2.7–3.2), and the median overall survival (OS) time was 7.1 months (95% CI, 6.4–7.9). The median PFS and OS times among patients with high and low levels of miR-143 expression in their blood serum were significantly different: median PFS times =3.2 months (95% CI, 2.9–3.4) and 2.7 months (95% CI, 2.4–3.0), respectively (P=0.017), and median OS times =7.8 months (95% CI, 6.8–8.9) and 6.3 months (95% CI, 5.3–7.3), respectively (P=0.036). No patient experienced Grade 4 toxicity. Combined third-line treatment with pemetrexed and DCs was marginally effective and well tolerated in patients with advanced ESCC. Serum miR-143 levels are a potential biomarker for predicting the efficacy of pemetrexed plus DCs in the treatment of ESCC.