Cetuximab was well tolerated but had limited activity in this patient population with progressive HGG. A minority of patients may derive a more durable benefit but were not prospectively identified by EGFR gene copy number.

Everolimus showed clinical activity in advanced TCC. The profile of the plasma angiogenesis-related proteins suggested a role of the everolimus antiangiogenic properties in disease control. PTEN loss might be associated with everolimus resistance.

Background: Colonoscopy is currently widely accepted as the gold standard for detection of colorectal cancer (CRC) providing detection of up to 95% of pre-cancerous lesions during the procedure. However, certain limitations exist in most countries including cost and access to the procedure. Moreover, colonoscopy is an invasive technique with risk inherent to the endoscopic procedure. For this reason, alternative screening tests, in particular, fecal occult blood-based tests, have been widely adopted for frontline screening. Limited compliance to colonoscopy and fecal screening approaches has prompted research on blood-based tests as an alternative approach to identifying individuals at risk who could then be referred for colonoscopy. Increased total levels of nucleosomes in the blood have been associated with tumor burden and malignancy progression. Here, we report for the first time, CRC-associated epigenetic profiles of circulating cell-free nucleosomes (cf-nucleosomes). Methods: Levels of 12 epigenetic cf-nucleosome epitopes were measured in the sera of 58 individuals referred for endoscopic screening for CRC. Results: Multivariate analysis defined an age-adjusted panel of four cf-nucleosomes that provided an AUC of 0.97 for the discrimination of CRC from healthy controls with high sensitivity at early stages (sensitivity of 75 and 86 at 90% specificity for stages I and II, respectively). A second combination of four cf-nucleosome biomarkers provided an AUC of 0.72 for the discrimination of polyps from the healthy group. Conclusions: This study suggests that a combination of different cf-nucleosome structures analyzed in serum samples by a simple ELISA is a promising approach to identify patients at risk of CRC.

This study was designed to establish a direct homing assay using purified lineage-negative Sca-1-positive (Lin(-) Sca(+)) murine bone marrow cells and to evaluate the effects of cytokines on homing. C57BL/6 Lin(-) Sca(+) marrow stem cells were labeled with 5-(and 6)-carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester (CFDA-SE) and then injected by tail vein into untreated C57BL/6 mice. Marrow was harvested at various times after cell infusion and analyzed on a high-speed MoFlo cell sorter for fluorescent positive events, using a large event analysis, with at least 16 million total events analyzed. We have shown that homing of Lin(-) Sca(+) cells plateaus by 1 h, and at 3 h post-infusion is linear between 50,000 and 1,000,000 infused cells. This forms a base for a homing assay in which 250,000 CFDA-SE labeled Lin(-) Sca(+) marrow cells are infused and then recovered from marrow 3 h later, followed by a large-event fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis. We found that 7.45-9.32% of infused cells homed and that homing of stem cells cultured for 48 h in interleukin-3 (IL-3), IL-6, IL-11, and steel factor cultured cells was defective when compared to noncultured cells. Exposure of marrow stem cells to IL-3, IL-6, IL-11, and steel factor induces a stem cell homing defect, which probably underlies the engraftment defect previously characterized under these conditions.

The addition of estramustine to weekly D does not provide any clinically relevant advantage. Both regimens are well tolerated, although the toxicity profile favors D without estramustine.