Cervical cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer-related deaths in women worldwide. Despite advances in current therapies, women with advanced or recurrent disease present poor prognosis. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has emerged as an effective therapeutic alternative to treat oncological diseases such as cervical cancer. Phthalocyanines (Pcs) are considered good photosensitizers (PS) for PDT, although most of them present high levels of aggregation and are lipophilic. Despite many investigations and encouraging results, Pcs have not been approved as PS for PDT of invasive cervical cancer yet. This review presents an overview on the pathophysiology of cervical cancer and summarizes the most recent developments on the physicochemical properties of Pcs and biological results obtained both in vitro in tumor-bearing mice and in clinical tests reported in the last five years. Current evidence indicates that Pcs have potential as pharmaceutical agents for anti-cervical cancer therapy. The authors firmly believe that Pc-based formulations could emerge as a privileged scaffold for the establishment of lead compounds for PDT against different types of cervical cancer.

SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped non-segmented positive-sense RNA virus, classified as a beta coronavirus, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), reported as a SARS-CoV-2 receptor, is expressed in different human tissues (lung, intestine, and kidney) and in the testis, ovaries, uterus, and vagina. This suggests a potential risk to the human reproductive tract in COVID-19 patients. In addition, SARS-CoV-2 RNA has been detected in the blood, urine, facial/anal swabs, semen, and vaginal secretion, suggesting other potential means of transmission. However, little has been reported about SARS-CoV-2 infection in the male and nonpregnant female reproductive tracts, which may provide direct evidence on sexual transmission and fertility problems. Therefore, we focused this narrative review mainly on the distribution of ACE2 and SARS-CoV-2 positivity in the male and nonpregnant female reproductive tracts, providing an overview of the potential threat of COVID-19 to reproductive health and sexual transmission.

Objective: The present report investigated the rates of coinfections between high-rik human papillomavirus (hrHPV) and the most important human mycoplasmas including Mycoplasma hominis, M. genitalium, Ureaplasma urealyticum and U. parvum in cervical samples of asymptomatic brazilian population. Methods: Were included a total of 283 women aged 25-64 years screened by Papanicolaou smears for determining cervical abnormalities, single-target polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and real-time PCR (rt-PCR) for hrHPV and mycoplasmas, respectively. Results: A total of 273 (94.5%) women were negative for intraepithelial lesions or malignancy cytology (NILM) and 10 (3.5%) presented abnormal cytology, all low-grade intraepithelial lesions (LSIL). The prevalence of hrHPV was 12.7% and 53.7% for mycoplasmas. U. parvum was the most frequently bacteria detected, followed by Mycoplasma hominis and U. urealyticum. M. genitalium was not detected. Women positive for U. parvum presented a 5-fold increased risk of LSIL (OR = 5.33; 95% CI = 1.09-26.04, P = 0.02) and co-infections between U. parvum and hrHPV increased the risk for LSIL (OR = 3.88; 95% CI = 1.75-8.58, P = 0.0003). However, these associations were not dependent on the concentration of the bacteria. Conclusion: Our results reinforced the hypothesis that some mycoplasmas may play a role as cofactors in HPV-mediated cervical carcinogenesis, at least in some populations.

Despite the options available for breast cancer (BC) therapy, several adverse effects and resistance limit the success of the treatment. Furthermore, the use of a single drug is associated with a high failure rate. We investigated through a systematic review the in vitro effects of the combination between conventional drugs and bioactive compounds derived from cinnamic acid in BC treatment. The information was acquired from the following databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Scopus, Lilacs and Cochrane library. We focused on “Cinnamates”, “Drug Combinations” and “Breast neoplasms” for publications dating between January 2012 and December 2022, based on the PRISMA statement. The references of the articles were carefully reviewed. Finally, nine eligible studies were included. The majority of these studies were performed using MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-468 and BT-20 cell lines and the combination between cisplatin, paclitaxel, doxorubicin, tamoxifen, dactolisib and veliparib, with caffeic acid phenethyl ester, eugenol, 3-caffeoylquinic acid, salvianolic acid A, ferulic acid, caffeic acid, rosmarinic acid and ursolic acid. The combination improved overall conventional drug effects, with increased cytotoxicity, antimigratory effect and reversing resistance. Combining conventional drugs with bioactive compounds derived from cinnamic acid could emerge as a privileged scaffold for establishing new treatment options for different BC types.

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This analysis was partially funded from the CDC, which also provided technical assistance related to analysis and interpretation of data and writing the report (contract 75D30120C08186). The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the CDC.

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